Corner House is a Michelin-starred restaurant located inside Singapore Botanic Garden. It is the apt location of a restaurant promoting a Gastro Botanica style of cuisine, an approach emphasizing refinement and quality, giving equivalent weight on the plate to protein and botanical elements. It is the creation of Chef Jason Tan inspired by curious travel, a French classic culinary ground and a devotion to provenance, terroir and seasonality.
The visit
The Corner House is a colonial style bungalow inside the Botanic Gardens. It is not in a corner… “Corner” was the surname of one of the early assistant director of the institution (1929-1945) and the bungalow is where he lived.
It was easy to book via Chope, but not so easy to reach. You have two options. The first is to get to the Botanic Garden metro station then to walk for around 900 meters. This is how I arrived. It was a pleasant walk (but not really passing next to any botanic landmark) and there were plenty of signs. The second option is to get a taxi Nassim Gate of the Gardens and then walk around 200 meters. That’s how I left and there was some waiting for a taxi to show up.
They only operate with set menus. I was there on a Sunday for brunch and they had the brunch menu available which was fine with me.
The bread was a croissant with five spices, raisins bread, unsalted butter and yuzu flavored butter (yuzu everywhere nowadays).
The first course was a set of appetizers. The spread included (from the left) honeydew (a tropical fruit) with watermelon radish, king fish tartare with seaweed (ichiki), foie gras with orange marmalade (with some tasted bread), mushroom tempura with Parmesan cheese emulsion for dipping (the dish on the back). All delicious, but not a lot of food.
The first main dish was an egg Benedict (one…) with burnt oranges, iberico ham, and topped with tobiko.
Then there was a piece of New Zealand blue cod with fried scale in a chili and butterscotch sauce, with some salmon roe.
Finally the desert was emulsion of durian enclosing coffee ice cream on a scone pastry. The ice cream flavor helped to tame the durian and was overall good.
From start to finish, the brunch took exactly 1 hour.
The check
Brunch and a bottle of water was 127.10 SGD (92 USD). It should be noted that the brunch menu is one of their most affordable menus (dinner set are much more expensive).
I had the impression that the brunch did not help them to display the gastro-botanic style in full. Certainly the dishes were impressively presented and all very good. However, I found the value proposition a bit defective.
One bonus: the restaurant is 200 meters from the famous Orchid Garden (entrance fee required, while the rest of the Gardens is free of charge) that is worth a visit.
Where in Singapore:
1 Cluny Road, E J H Corner House
Singapore Botanic Gardens (Nassim Gate Entrance)
Website: https://cornerhouse.com.sg.