Jaan by Kirk Westaway - Singapore
Dinner with a multi-million dollar view
Rating: 16/20
Where: Singapore, Singapore
When: Dinner for 2 on 27 February 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 388 SGD, Wine Pairing 248 SGD
Accolades: 2 Michelin Stars, #77 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants (2025)
Why: Amazing view, great service, good food - perfect for a date
Say what you will about Singapore's “Jaan by Kirk Westaway”, but it has without a doubt one of the most gorgeous views of any restaurant in the city - or the world for that matter. Sitting on the 70th floor of what used to be the highest hotel in the world, one can see the Marina with the famous Marina Bay Sands hotel, and beyond that the Singapore Strait filled with countless container ships. There are only twelve tables in the restaurant, and they are arranged so that practically every guest gets to admire the view.
“Jaan” means “life” in Hindi, and whereas the restaurant's name has been the same for a long time, its cuisine has changed under a series of chefs that included Julien Royer, who now owns nearby three-starred Odette. The current chef, Kirk Westaway, is British and serves European food, with nary a nod to the restaurant's location in Asia. When researching restaurants in Singapore, I came across a comment made by the chef, saying that he wanted his food to be “comforting”. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Only one way to find out.
It turned out that the non-food related parts of our dinner were very, very good. Not just the view, but also the service. The staff was personable and paid attention to even the smallest details. When my wife remarked that she liked Jerusalem artichokes, our server offered to pack some up for us to take home (not really feasible without a kitchen in the hotel room, but a nice touch nevertheless). For our drinking water, we were offered the addition of thinly-cut slices of Amalfi lemons, Thai limes, or cucumbers. I've seen water menus before, but this might have been my first encounter with a water-flavoring selection.
Jaan serves a single six course tasting menu that could be modified for dietary restrictions. A wine pairing of six glasses was available to accompany those six courses (but not the appetizers or petit fours). The wines in the pairing were consistently very good - in fact, they were even better than the wines that we ordered by the glass, which is rarely the case.
Four little bites preceded the main part of the tasting menu. An onion cracker was filled with crème fraîche. It tasted of roasted onions, kind of like an inverted, and more elegant, onion dip 17. A cracker filled with goose mousse had a light crunch, and was quite creamy with hints of acidity. Fine, but nothing special 15. The pescatarian alternative to the goose mousse was a mushroom cracker filled with, well, mushrooms and red onions 16. The restaurant's version of fish and chips was a potato pancake filled with cream and topped with Kristal caviar. The pancake was somewhat reminiscent of hash browns with a light taste of lemon. The caviar was unfortunately a bit overpowered in this dish - a “waste of good caviar”, as my wife put it 15. Finally, a “cheddar pancake” didn't look at all like a pancake - it was a sphere filled with Devon cheddar and topped with a date puree and a hazelnut crumble. We had been instructed to eat this in one bite to avoid spilling the filling, but it turned out not to be liquid at all - maybe we had waited too long to eat it. Cheesy and fried - fine, but a bit rustic 14.
Next came a soup that was meant to be drunk directly from its cup. Its contents: charred leeks, a potato foam, shiitake mushrooms, roasted macadamia nuts and chives, all served warm. Related to, but not exactly, a vichyssoise. I liked the creamy and foamy first impression of the soup the best. Once that was over, the dish tasted more of mushrooms rather than leeks or potatoes. The roasted macadamias added a nice nutty touch. These nuts were more toasted than their traditional still-white version, resulting in much more flavor. Interesting; I don't know why we don't see this preparation more often 16. My wife was blown away by this soup and would have given it a 20.
Two breads were provided to accompany our dinner, and both arrived warm. A country dark rye sourdough had a nicely crunchy crunch and a flavorful center. It went very well with the provided Devon butter and Cornish sea salt. Slightly less successful was an English butter roll that was crunchy and very buttery. Nothing surprising here, but very well done. We even got a loaf of the sourdough to take home at the end 17.
The first “real” course of our dinner was entitled “Winter Garden”, and consisted of a mix of root vegetables, served roasted and as chips. There were white beets, parsnips, potatoes, chervil, and black salsify, and they came with a sauce of Jerusalem artichokes and a few pieces of Iberian ham on top. Before the dish arrived at our table, we were treated to a nice display of its ingredients. These at-the-table presentations are something I've seen several times on this trip - a new trend, maybe? The dish was pleasant enough. While there were different textures of the root vegetables, they were all “just” roasted or chips - no pickled or raw vegetables to provide an even wider range of textures, as seen in similar “seasonal produce” dishes elsewhere. The ham was barely noticeable 16.
The next dish had a custard of violet artichokes topped with an egg yolk, Kristal caviar and a chicken-based sauce (replaced by a truffle sauce for pescatarians). On the side was a mushroom/truffle toast. Speaking to our sommelier, it almost seemed like this dish had been designed to make a wine pairing as difficult as possible. Lots of wines clash with artichokes, but even the ones that don't might have a problem with the egg yolk, and so on. In the end, she settled on a British sparkling wine that was not only a great fit for the dish, but was arguably also better than the champagnes that we had as aperitifs. This dish itself was a bit of a letdown, unfortunately. The custard barely tasted of artichokes, the caviar was strangely fishy, only the egg was commendable for adding some creaminess and umami. The toast had a mushroom taste (but virtually none of truffles) and was somewhat oily - not very exciting 14.
A sea bass from Brittany was topped with walnuts and sat on top of an eggplant/barley puree. It was surrounded by a sauce made of the fish trimmings and mushrooms. The fish was nicely cooked, the sauce creamy, and the walnuts were an unusual touch - very noticeable at first, but one got used to them quickly. The paired Grüner Veltliner was lovely and brought out some sweetness in the dish 16.
Scallops were served with a Japanese saffron pasta, a brown butter sauce and shaved black truffles from Périgord. The scallop had some bite and was nicely cooked and sauced - there was also a hint of a lemony flavor. The pasta was lovely as well - truffley and creamy, my only nitpick would be that it could have been served warmer 17.
The main savory course was a Japanese A4 wagyu tenderloin, wrapped in chicken skin and sitting atop a puree of roasted onions. Next to this was a stack of potatoes and foie gras, all surrounded by a beef sauce. The meat was cooked fine, but was very salty and made for a pretty heavy dish. The sweetness of the roasted onions was a nice addition to the beef, whereas the foie gras was decent, but the dish would also have been fine without it 16. In a separate bowl, we received a garden salad dressed with a mint-shallot vinaigrette. The salad was somewhat bitter, and the sauce very light. I'm not sure why we were instructed to eat this after the main course 14. For pescatarians, instead of the beef there was a blue lobster from Brittany. It came with crispy kale, pickled chanterelles, lemon peel and an herb sauce. The lobster was cooked very nicely and tender, the buttery sauce was quite enjoyable and the chanterelles added some welcome acidity. Oddly, this dish also contained the caramelized onions from the beef dish, but in this case they felt misplaced - they were too sweet 17.
Palate cleanser time! In a bowl, we were served some fresh pomelo and grapefruit, cucumber water ice, and alcohol-free gin and tonic flavored with Amalfi lemons, juniper berries and herbicidals. A lovely and refreshing dish: acidic, fruity and slightly bitter. We were also given some “real” gin to pour over the dish, and it definitely added some nice oomph 17.
For the dessert course, each diner had to pick among two choices, and naturally we tried one each. A custard made with chestnuts and brown butter tasted more of brown butter than of chestnuts (the latter seemed to appear only at the bottom of the plate) 15. A dish incorporating chocolate, macadamia nuts and coffee was quite good, and not very heavy - a common pitfall among chocolate-based desserts 16.
Four petit fours concluded our meal. A cranberry pâte de fruit was topped with verbena powder. Sweet, with a nice verbena aroma 17. A tarte filled with caramel, Devon cream and Cornish sea salt tasted essentially of salted caramel. A sweet dish with a mealy crunch from the underlying cracker 18. An “apple pie” with cinnamon tasted mostly of cooked apples and cinnamon 15. Lastly, a chocolate bonbon had a nice dark chocolate ganache filling 16.
Overall: The things I'll remember most from this dinner are (in order): the magnificent view, the great service, the great wine pairings and a pleasant, “safe” cuisine. That's essentially the definition of a perfect date restaurant, so if that's your reason for coming here, then Jaan is an excellent choice. However, if one is looking for food that pushes culinary boundaries or challenges the diner, then this might not be the best place. But neither is it trying to be - this is a restaurant that knows it target audience and does a great job catering to them 16.
