Les Amis has emerged after a month-long renovation. What can diners expect?
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Les Amis has emerged later on a month-long renovation. What can diners wait?
The three-Michelin-starred eatery now boasts a refurbished interior, new dedicated cheese and caviar rooms, and a new department where diners can purchase gourmet produce. 1 thing that hasn't inverse (much): The menu.
Singapore'due south Les Amis, a 27-yr-potent institution, had scheduled a 1000 renovation that would take identify through the month of June. (Photo: Instagram/lesamisrestaurant)
28 Jun 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 09 Aug 2022 10:41AM)
The news of Singapore'southward heightened pandemic alert, which prohibited in-restaurant dining from May 16 to Jun 20, came equally a blow to virtually restaurants… save for French fine diner Les Amis.
As luck with have it, the 27-twelvemonth-strong institution had scheduled a grand renovation that would accept place through the month of June, with reopening slated for Jun 24. Just in time, as it turns out, for diners to return to its welcoming embrace, admitting only in pairs for the time beingness.
The expert news: Les Amis will yet feel familiar to its regulars fifty-fifty if its interiors accept been gutted to make way for brand new floors, ceilings, carpet and furnishings. That'southward because its layout, said executive chef Sebastien Lepinoy, volition remain unchanged.
Diners volition notwithstanding be greeted past a burgundy characteristic wall, kitchen staff will nonetheless cook "below deck", just a short flying of stairs down from the dining room, and mannered service staff will continue to gracefully booty their bread and water ice foam trolleys upwardly a couple of steps to the mezzanine level.
"It is important to us that nosotros go on our identity," explained Lepinoy, who has helmed the eatery for the by eight years and nether whose tenure it has earned iii Michelin stars, five stars from Forbes Travel Guide and a Grand Laurels by Wine Spectator. In the restaurant world, those collective awards are the Hollywood equivalent of the EGOT (Emmy/Grammy/Oscar/Tony).
"Les Amis has been effectually since 1994, and when y'all are a eatery that has been around that long, yous need to maintain your identity," Lepinoy said.
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THE LUXURY OF LINGERING
At its centre, this latest renovation is about creating a more than comfortable dining experience for the restaurant'due south guests who often linger up to five hours over their meal.
Hence, new Chelsea chairs from Italian designer Rodolfo Dordoni have been chosen for its private rooms to offer improve back support while every table is now 3cm larger to let for more forearm room. In the residual of the dining room, the chairs have been refurbished and padded with additional fibre for greater support.
Likewise new to the space are dedicated cheese and caviar rooms where diners can appoint with newly minted cheese master Manoj Sharma and caviar chief Patrick Esteves – both long time maitre d's of the restaurant – nigh the nuances of the delicacies on offer. Both gentlemen earned their titles through preparation in France with diverse producers.
Conversely, to ease the work of its front-of-house team, little touches like new carbon serving trays, which are 3kg lighter than their previous silver ones, literally lighten the load when ferrying food from kitchen to tabular array.
The menu, however, will remain much the same.
"Les Amis is a French archetype eating place," explained Lepinoy. "Our bill of fare changes iv times a year, following the French seasons. And this is how it volition continue. We accept signature dishes that people travel from all over the earth for and we cannot change these. Nosotros volition open with the summer menu, with ingredients like tomatoes, lobster, langoustine, sweetbreads… all common during this time of yr. Changing signature items is high risk; that'south how yous lose your Michelin stars. Customers come up for specific things throughout the twelvemonth."
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EGGS, EGGS, EGGS
To commemorate its refreshed guise, however, Lepinoy has created a new signature dish featuring a poached egg from France, blanketed in watercress puree and served with "an impressive" corporeality of caviar. Diners can choose from four types of the indulgent roe for this dish, namely Oscietra, beluga, Kristal and sevruga. Lest yous were wondering, "an impressive amount" constitutes 25g. That's near a whole small can of caviar, which ordinarily weighs 30g.
"Nosotros accept basic prices for the carte du jour where people can cull between sevruga and Kristal. If they desire to go for the beluga or Oscietra, in that location are supplements," he added.
The supplement for a serving of beluga caviar hovers around the S$300 mark, which for most of the restaurant's high rollers, is chump change. "The beluga is really expensive, but usually nosotros don't need to sell it," affirmed Lepinoy. "When people see it, they either desire it or they don't. Frequently (if they exercise), people will just take the full tin of caviar. Then in that instance, nosotros serve the eggs for free, and the can of caviar goes on the tabular array and they simply spoon it on their plates."
Which brings the states to new spending habits.
The latest semi-lockdown may not have afflicted Les Amis, but the pandemic has left an enduring mark on the way information technology operates. Earlier borders closed, Les Amis saw foreign visitors making up 25 per cent of its clientele; today it hosts full houses of Singapore'due south nutrient-loving residents.
"With the 10.30pm cut-off for booze service, people at present arrive for dinner by 7pm and by 10pm they are taking coffee. By 11pm they leave," Lepinoy explained. "Merely now, people stay a long time for tiffin and we sell a lot more alcohol and then as well. Since people are not travelling, nosotros run into them spending on higher-priced menus, which they indulge in also because they have the luxury of time now that many of them are working from habitation."
IN WITH THE NEW
Out of the embers of last twelvemonth's Circuit Breaker has too emerged a new merchandising arm that sees the eatery's products such as ice creams, smoked salmon, caviar, olive oil, butter and cheeses available for purchase. "In these uncertain times, we want people to have a piece of Les Amis at dwelling house, you lot don't have to come in to dine," he said.
Nonetheless dining-in is the very essence of restaurants similar Les Amis, and its business firm following has shown their enthusiasm with healthy reservations even earlier it has opened its doors. At the fourth dimension of writing three days before its opening, the eating place reported fourscore per cent reservations. Evidently, its guests cannot wait to become dorsum to the tabular array.
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