Just hours before the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019 results were announced, Julien Royer, the chef-owner of Odette, Singapore, was overheard talking to a journalist about Louise, his soon-to-open casual French diner named after his paternal grandmother, Jean Louise, at PMQ in Central. 10 bars and restaurants to visit in Kuala Lumpur The opening of Royer’s Hong Kong restaurant could not be better timed. That same night, the Singapore French fine-dining restaurant run by the Auvergne-born chef hit a home run by clinching top spot at the awards ceremony at Wynn Palace, Macau, toppling four-years-in-a-row champion Gaggan in Bangkok. “It’s a night of shock, surprise and many emotions,” said Royer, who attributed his restaurant’s meteoric rise to a business partner who believed in him and to his hard-working, well-oiled team (“everyone from the kitchen, including my three sous chefs, to the service staff on the floor who put in so much effort to deliver hospitality”). Unlike the more casual Louise, Royer’s 40-seat fine-dining restaurant at Singapore’s National Gallery is known for its Asian-inflected modern French cuisine. Named Odette after his maternal grandmother who cooked for him and his elder sister when they were young, the tasting menu-only restaurant serves up Zen plates of refinement crafted from French and Japanese ingredients picked at the height of the season. Hong Kong celebrates 15 years of celebrity chefs His most iconic dish yet is Monsieur Fabien Deneour’s Brittany pigeon, presented whole in a handmade wooden box with a built-in smoking chamber, its breast flecked with aromatic kampot pepper, its leg served crisp, its liver served as a parfait with aged sherry vinegar, and its heart skewered and grilled. “The new generation of diners generally prefers less stuffy fine dining,” says Royer, who has spent 11 years in Singapore and believes he has his finger on the pulse of his guests. At his restaurant, diners are served multiple snacks, a parade of petit fours and no more than a maximum of eight courses at lunch and dinner. “They want the meal to be quicker and to have fewer – but more substantial – courses.” Not bad for a boy born into a farming family who only discovered the exquisite world of fine dining at the age of 19, when he stepped into the vaunted kitchen of Michel Bras as a junior cook. “I grew up on a 10-hectare farm that grew more than 50 varieties of vegetables, about 25 types of fruits and herbs – including wild strawberries and blueberries – and lots of free-roaming chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits, guinea fowl as well as a cow,” reminisces Royer, who says that about 90 per cent of the family’s meals were prepared with ingredients from their fields. 5 best restaurants for vegetarians and vegans in Taipei “My mother was busy tending to the farm but my grandma, Odette, fed us very well,” he says, noting that his grandmother made “very good tarts” like apple pie. “Odette showed me how food could evoke positive emotions in people – my restaurant is a tribute to her.” Royer grew up “running around” outdoors (“I led a simple life and walked a lot in the of forests in Auvergne”). At the age of seven he started helping out in the family kitchen with simple tasks like cutting carrots and marinating beef in red wine. “At the age of 14, I cooked my first meal for my family – a two-course dinner of beef bourguignon followed by a dessert of choux pastry filled with chocolate cream,” says the French chef who packed up to leave for culinary school when he was 16. The one-time sous chef to Antonin Bonnet of The Greenhouse, London, credits his time with Bernard Andrieux for solidifying his foundation in classic French cooking techniques, saying that while Michel Bras opened his eyes to the rarefied world of Michelin-starred restaurants, it was from Andrieux that he learned “how to make proper stocks and sauces, how to roast meat and how to cook fish or game during autumn and winter”. Grandma Odette was the one who showed me how food could evoke positive emotions in people – my restaurant is a tribute to her Julien Royer Royer has come a long way since he arrived in Singapore in 2008 as chef de cuisine at Les Saveurs at the St Regis Hotel. In 2011, he joined Jaan at Swissotel The Stamford in Singapore as chef de cuisine and opened Odette as chef and co-owner in 2015. For diners who have followed the career of this down-to-earth chef, the signs of success were apparent in the early days of Odette’s conception. The restaurant was awarded two Michelin stars just nine months after opening in November 2015 and less than two years after its debut, Odette was placed at No 9 on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017, scaling to No 5 (and No 28 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list) last year. How Gaggan Anand rose from ‘poor child of India’ to famous chef Hot on the heels of his win at Asia’s 50 Best this year, Royer was also roped in by Air France for a one-year contract, starting in April, to prepare in-flight meals for the La Première and business cabins between Singapore and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. “There are many factors apart from budget that need to be considered when developing dishes to be served at 10,000 metres,” says Royer, noting how our palates are less sensitised in-flight where air pressure and humidity are reduced. “We have to adjust the sweetness, acidity and saltiness of dishes by pumping up flavours to cater to the change in the palate’s sensation.” He also says that one of the key areas is the need to reheat food in-flight, an additional step that could potentially dry up the protein. For the Air France programme, Royer reveals that he had in mind serving a dish of pork with green lentils from his hometown with sauce charcutière (a meat sauce with gherkins and mustard). After experimenting with pork loin, rib and belly, he zeroed in on the latter due to its higher fat content. How air stewardesses became flight attendants His debut Air France menu for the month of April featured a confit of cod with rosemary and coco de Paimpol, raw chorizo and piquillo peppers for La Première while passengers in the business cabins were served grilled scallops with carrot mousseline and saffron nage. “There are very limited ingredients that we could play with for in-flight meals,” says Royer, who avoids produce like lobsters for consumption at altitude for fear of serving up a dry and rubbery crustacean. Some vegetables with high water content, such as cauliflower, also turn bitter when reheated. But at his Singapore restaurant, one of the highlights of Royer’s seasonally changing menu is a riveting lobster dish served every year during summer. Two years ago, succulent lobes of lobster were cooked with poivrade artichokes and cupid tomatoes in a hearty bouillabaisse. Last year, the shellfish was flanked by compressed and heirloom tomatoes, pickled onion rings and drizzled with a hint of vanilla oil. To find out what he has in store this year, you will have to brace yourself for one of the toughest tables to book in Singapore. OCCUPATION Restaurant owner/chef ON WINNING ASIA’S 50 BEST RESTAURANTS 2019 ‘A night of shock, surprise and many emotions.’ INSPIRATION FOR RESTAURANT ‘Grandma Odette was the one who showed me how food could evoke positive emotions in people – my restaurant is a tribute to her.’ Milestones 2015 Opens Odette, Singapore 2016 Odette receives two Michelin stars 2017 Odette enters Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list at No 9 2018 Odette enters the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list at No 28 Want more stories like this? Sign up here . Follow STYLE on Facebook , Instagram and Twitter
