Diner’s Diary

Michelin Guide Singapore: there’s more to Lion City dining than the red book, says tourism board after three-star failure

While a leading chef said missing out on three Michelin stars would dent Singapore tourism, the city state’s tourism board – a Michelin Guide sponsor – says its accolades are just one factor among many that draw diners to Lion City

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The Maxwell Hawker Food Centre, one of the for which Singapore is “internationally renowned” and part of the Lion City’s rich dining scene, the Singapore Tourism Board says.

Bernice Chan is a former SCMP Culture writer who is now based in Vancouver, Canada, where she writes compelling stories about food and drink, lifestyle, wellness and the Asian diaspora.

Published: 12:35pm, 2 Aug 2018Updated: 12:35pm, 2 Aug 2018

A leading Singapore chef said last week the Michelin Guide’s failure to award three stars to any Lion City restaurant would deter gourmet tourists from visiting – but the Singapore Tourism Board professes not to be worried.

The city state’s “diverse and richly textured dining scene” comprised more than Michelin-starred restaurants, its director for retail and dining, Ranita Sundramoorthy, said in a statement to the Post. Straying into hyperbole, the statement pointed to “myriad dining events” as part of the attraction for gourmets. Myriad? Hm – that means “a countless or extremely great number … of things”, according to the Oxford Dictionaries online.

Chef Sebastien Lepinoy said the lack of three-Michelin-star restaurants was “sad for Singapore”.

The decision of the Michelin Guide – whose sponsors include the Singapore Tourism Board – not to give its highest accolade to a Singapore restaurant was a shock, and Sebastien Lepinoy, the executive chef of Les Amis, which local media had expected would earn a third Michelin star, didn’t hide his disappointment for the Lion City.

“This is sad for Singapore because many tourists come to Singapore to dine in restaurants. Twenty-five per cent of our guests are tourists and when they find out there are no three-star restaurants here, they would rather go to Hong Kong, where there are six restaurants with three stars,” he said after the 2018 guide’s unveiling at Resorts World Sentosa, another of the guide’s sponsors.

Chefs from the five Singapore restaurants awarded two stars in the 2018 Michelin Guide Singapore on stage at Resorts World Sentosa with Michael Ellis, international director, Michelin Guides. Photo: courtesy of Michelin Guides

Julien Royer, chef-owner of Odette – which, like Les Amis and three other restaurants, retained its two Michelin stars – also said he was sad for Singapore, and that he would try harder next year.