The average folk doesn’t consume caviar on a weekly basis. Perhaps not even every month, we speculate. While pricing may be a factor, culture is also another; wild sturgeon roe isn’t a garnish you simply dole out on any cuisine. So if you ever, for some inexplicable reason, want to compensate for a lifetime’s worth of missed caviar-istic opportunities, Caviar lives up to its name.
Akin to specialised rum or gin bars starring the liquor of choice, this modern European fine dining restaurant focuses seasonal degustation, tasters and curated experiences exclusively on caviar. It’s almost as if someone asked: How far can we push the boundaries of what caviar can be paired with? How can we add more extravagance to luxury? Or how do we make our diner feel so wealthy his next goal in life is to take a trip to space on his own rocket?
Ranging from five-course lunches (from SGD98) to nine-course dinners (from SGD328), these pinhead pearls adorn everything including amuse-bouches and even petit fours. Well, not everything thankfully. Too much of a good thing aside, caviar in different types is not blindly added but carefully chosen according to the menu.
Where present, caviar enhances the flavour profile as you’d naturally desire it to… and as pretentious as that sounds. Albeit served in generous portions each time, the tiny heap works its black magic whether in an Iberico lardo purée with a dollop of organic egg yolk (Polanco Siberian Reserve) or atop botan ebi tartare and sliced water chestnut in buttermilk drizzle (Superior Oscietra).
A favourite use would be in dessert: caviar on a sake lees sorbet hinted with lime where savoury meets dry and tart in such a unique and textured encounter on the tongue. That’s not to say the dishes without don’t match up to their laden counterparts when even the humble palate cleanser holds its own. If you don’t mind the minor oddity that is the establishment’s interior design—only if we’re being critical—it’s a great place to wonderfully overdose on decadence.
Caviar is at Palais Renaissance, 390 Orchard Road #B1-07, Singapore 238871.
