The list of awards received by Restaurant Andre is far too long to mention here. The fact is that Restaurant Andre is undoubtedly one of the best restaurants in Asia and perhaps the very best in Singapore.
However, even more impressing than the long list of awards is the experience itself, as you won’t find a long list of food items. The restaurant is famous for not having a menu at all.
When asking chef Andre about what it is like to dine in his restaurant, he explains: “I will say that it’s very much personal, because we don’t have a fixed menu. So the concept is, people come to Andre’s house and I cook the way I felt that day and what produce I received that day – we change accordingly.”
Restaurant Andre | Time to Appreciate
There is no need to rush, as probably most customers would be glad to stay all night long. “I often describe the dinner experience as a movie, because you sit down for two and a half hours, and you want to know what happens”, says chef Andre.
A trip to Restaurant Andre is quite unique in the sense that food, anticipation, and satisfaction blend together into one experience. Not knowing what one will eat (although knowing that it will be exquisite) creates a feeling that is reminiscent of a child in a toyshop – however, a very sophisticated one.
Restaurant Andre | Focus on Food
“For every course we decide a theme. We always have a dish that is dedicated to an artisan. I always have a dish that doesn’t have salt and pepper, but is just pure produce”, Andre explains. “It’s hard to have a signature dish that can represent my cuisine. It is more the idea behind it that it is always the same.”
Located in an elegantly renovated shop house on Bukit Pasoh Road, the restaurant doesn’t offer fancy views of the city, like the chef’s former home at Jaan, but wants the customer to focus on what’s in front of them. One thing you don’t do at Restaurant Andre is to ask for the menu.
Restaurant Andre | Octaphilosophy
Practiced since day one, octaphilosophy is the chef’s instinct towards food. However, chef Andre explains that it has logic. Andre doesn’t have a signature dish, but rather a signature style that has developed over the past 20 years. It is for that reason that the restaurant doesn’t have a menu – it doesn’t need one. Octaphilosophy guides the chef is his/her discovery through the cuisine.
Using presumptions, implications, and interrelationships of food and how we perceive it, the chefs are able to create every day something new and unique that is still ‘signature’.
Combing aromas and textures is partly an intuition and partly endless trail of memories. All of that goes into every single dish. The diners won’t necessarily know all of that (he/she doesn’t need to), but they will be able to experience it through the food. Going out to eat at Restaurant Andre isn’t a casual undertaking, but a sophisticated experience. Play now the video of The Minute List to know everything about Restaurant Andre:
Travelling, eating, and drinking his way through life, Peter is continuously hungry for more. Always looking something new and exciting every single day, his day starts before the sunrise and ends longer after the sunset.
