Gunther's Restaurant

[Bu Pun Su]

French food is my favorite cuisine and l’Arpege is my favorite restaurant. Currently, entering the 4th year that I haven’t returned to l’Arpege (Since ’06, I usually make an effort to go there at least once every 2 years). At the very least I had a chance to savor Alain Passard’s cuisine in late ’12 when he became a guest Chef at Beaufort hotel Sentosa – the most memorable part was when Alain personally cooked 2 Brittany lobsters for me. Fortunately, Singapore has a restaurant owned and run by Passard’s apprentice & his former sous chef, Gunther Hubrechsen. Therefore, whenever I crave for (home-style) French cooking that’s light, delicate and delicious, I often come here. Similar to my Les Amis’ experience, I’ve actually been here about 4 times since 2008 but never wrote a (serious) review even once. As a matter of fact, Gunther’s is one of my favorite restaurants in Singapore

I had dinner at Gunther’s in the same week as my meal at Les Amis. On purpose, I ordered carte-blanche here with similar budget to the Les Amis’ degustation menu. I wondered how these 2 elite gastronomy restaurants (cooking nouvelle cuisine without any molecular element) would fare against each other. A short comparison in a glance,

Les Amis = 7 courses including one dessert. 2 courses with caviar and 3 courses with black truffle. There were scallop, lobster and wagyu beef

Gunther’s = 8 courses with a dessert. 1 dish with caviar and also 3 courses with black truffle. There were scallop, gambas and wagyu beef

Anyway, I ate and enjoyed very much the following stuffs at Gunther’s (my top 3 dishes):

1st: cold angel hair pasta with Oscietra caviar - the restaurant’s most well-known dish and Chef Hubrechsen should be proud of it. It’s the 3rd time I savor this dish; it’s still very delicious – the flavor, the smells, the texture and all other elements were spot on. High degree of consistency...

5th: carabinero gambas with tomato rice – given how far Spain from Singapore is, the kitchen did a good job in preparing this prawn. I tasted the gambas’ freshness and sweet flavor; it’s well-seasoned too. The Japanese rice cooked with the prawn’s stock and tomato was pleasant except I prefer rice with firmer texture (like in risotto or paella)

6th: grilled scallop with black truffle – the main highlight of my meal. The Hokkaido scallop was juicy and tender though not as tasty as the one I had at Les Amis. However, it’s well-enhanced by the sublime and sweet caramelized onion below as well as the pungent winter truffle aroma and flavor on top of it. I liked the onion very much here – a good example how Gunther brought out the essence of its ingredient; possibly the closest one (in terms of ‘deliciousness’) to the Passard’s perfect onion gratin with parmesan that looks deceptively simple

What makes Gunther’s special is that the talented Belgian chef-owner is capable of generating many different kind of ‘unassuming’ dishes and elevating them to higher level using no more than 3 fresh produce on each plate. It seems modest at times, but actually quite sophisticated. Let me describe a few more dishes I had,

4th: roasted garlic with onion essence – if I had to pick one dish I like the least, it’s probably the one. The roasted garlic had smooth texture and good smell, well-integrated with mascarpone sauce. However, I found the (garlic) portion was too big. After consuming 2/3 of them, I just swallowed the rest (almost no chewing) so that I wouldn’t be too stuffed and/or dilute my palate for the next dishes

7th: Char grilled wagyu beef in bordelaise sauce – this was the main course served in a nice portion with a right amount of “fat”. Delicate Japanese beef was generally a safe choice; the chef didn’t do too much and just allowed the natural flavor of high quality wagyu to shine. The sauce and the grilled corn were precisely executed. Nothing wow but it’s hard not to like Japanese beef J

8th: Truffle parfait – dessert. It’s a soft and light vanilla ice cream served with rich chocolate brownie and topped with aromatic smell induced by the Perigord truffle (having slight peppery taste). I hardly eat dessert with truffle in it. This one was sweet and rather delicious

There were a couple more dishes I had and you can see/read them on the picture link below. For the meal, I drank 2 glasses of wine. The first glass was 2010 Vincent girardin chassagne-Montrachet; it’s rich and creamy with buttery aromas. The second one was 2009 Black quail Pinot noir; it’s medium bodied with dark berries delicate fragrance and dry finish in slight acidity – a quite refined pinot noir that surprisingly went along nicely with my scallop dish (of course, better with the beef). Oh before I forget, this place only offers one type of bread and butter – to be exact warm mini baguette and salted butter served at room temperature – simple but good; I ate 3 baguettes if not mistaken. The meal ended with a petit four consisting of a green tea macaron and canele – both were fine.

It was a quiet evening, about half of the restaurant’s capacity was filled. Probably most people were still busy to attend reunion dinner with their friends and colleagues. The dining room decoration was minimalist dominated by dark grey color for the walls (some paintings were hung on them) and medium lighting. This way guests would not feel overwhelmed and the food took center stage. The staffs were polite and helpful without being intrusive. Besides the sommelier, one friendly “Indian” maitre d’ and the greeter, most of restaurants’ FOH staffs were relatively new. Chef Hubrechsen, usually visiting the dining room to greet guests, explained that the staffs turnover at Singapore restaurants were still very high; he even did not have any permanent sous chef assisting him in the kitchen. So the good thing is that it’s almost guaranteed Gunther himself would always be in the kitchen daily to ensure food quality.

I gave my overall meal experience at Gunther’s nearly 94 pts (a good 2 ¼* by Michelin standard) and it meant about the same level as Shinji by Kanesaka Singapore and Eric Frechon’s Le Bristol, seriously. Another lovely meal, and overall it ranked as the most memorable one I’ve ever had here. Well, there was no bad meal experience at Gunther’s. Hope I can return again sometimes next year, even better if not on my own expenses. Lastly, I prefer this place over Les Amis by a small margin. Check here for pictures, https://picasaweb.google.com/118237905546308956881/GuntherSRestaurantSingapore#

Edited February 25, 2014 by Bu Pun Su (log)

[Bu Pun Su]

This review should’ve come earlier, but due to our Japan’s trip in Autumn 2015 (plus plenty of restaurants review) – only this weekend I managed to squeeze some times for another report of my dinner meal at Gunther’s. It took place sometimes in the mid/end of Nov last year and I had a pre-arranged degustation menu with some white truffle dishes.

 

There were 2 dishes that I particularly loved:

- Langoustine carpaccio with caviar and light cream sauce (vinaigrette & olive oil). The shellfish was fresh, moist and sweet; enhanced by glistening and briny flavor of Oscietra caviar. It was not inferior to Chef Hubrechsen’s cold angel hair pasta except the portion was rather small. A nice nostalgic of Alain Passard’s signature dish that (I believe) he no longer serves at L’Arpege

- The combo of egg fondant and bone marrow + Alba truffle. The outstanding item was the pure, buttery and umami bone marrow (cooked slowly for a few hours); the addition of white truffle made it an ‘intensely’ delicious dish. For more flavors, either add pumpkin coulis to the marrow or eating it alternately with the half-boiled egg yolk truffle on the side.  

 

Personally, I liked my meal more a couple years ago. There wasn’t any bad dish per se, but most dishes were ‘only’ good/decent (probably some unconscious result from my superior meals during the Japan’s trip). For instance, my Spanish roasted black pig was tender and tasty but a bit too dry/not juicy. The signature dessert of apple tart dragee suffered from its hard texture (difficult to cut through). Moreover, I think I consumed one too many courses prepared in “raw” style that night. Thinking about it now, it would’ve been better had Gunther prepared grilled/pan-seared scallop instead of delivering this shellfish in carpaccio style.

 

The hospitality, on the contrary, was stellar. Bernard Nicolas, the restaurant manager/wine advisor, returned to lead the restaurant’s dining room once again. He added more interesting personality with his charm, witty and passion vs the common formal, polite but boring service one usually receives in Singapore high end restaurants. I went easy for the alcohol; only drank a glass of 2010 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru (Maison Vincent Girardin) – elegant in ‘golden’ color; fruity, dense with some oak – should come together better in 2/3 years’ time. The restaurant was kind enough to give me a tasting portion of Tokaji sweet wine to accompany my dessert  

 

I would give the rating for the food 93/100 this time. With regards to the upcoming Singapore Michelin guide, I’m confident Gunther’s will get at least 1-star though for my taste, it deserved 2-star assuming the Michelin would use the same generous standard applied to the HK/Macau guide

 

Here are the pictures from this meal: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7124357@N03/albums/72157665119931790