Cuisson brings French flair to Tanjong Pagar

NEW RESTAURANT

Cuisson 21 Tanjong Pagar Road Singapore 08444 Tel: 8849 6799 Open for lunch and dinner Tues to Sat: 11:30 am to 2:30 pm; 6 pm to 10.30 pm. Closed on Sun and Mon.

EVER stepped into a restaurant and felt your wallet struggling to jump out of your bag to catch the first bus home? We rather felt that way as we approached Cuisson, a haven in cluttered Tanjong Pagar Road that’s all airy and fancy with deep plush interiors and a spacious see-through glass wine cellar that would make studio apartment dwellers jealous.

We’re curious but also wary, since this is the new sister eatery of Voyage Patisserie on Outram Road – a bakery-cafe turned French bistro that is popular with the in-the-know crowd, but also an eatery that even rich people say is super pricey. We’ve never been. 

But we have to say, they know their service. Or they can smell resistance a mile away, spying us lingering outside, swiftly swinging the door open to welcome us like grandma wolf did with that dumb kid in a red hood. 

We don’t mean that. They are very nice.  And the place is fine dining but down to earth, with no airs or attempts at accents that don’t belong to them. We’re there for lunch, so as to mitigate any potential financial damage, and we find the prices a little on the high side for a new entity. But it does seem par for the dining level they are aiming at, especially when their menu merrily touts the Japanese prefectures their seafood comes from.  

You can have a three-course business lunch for S$98; S$118 for four or S$138 for a “pentalogy”. We guess that means five. Or, you could pretend lunch is dinner and go straight to the tasting menu, at S$208 or S$258. 

The menu tells us that the chef de cuisine is Tan Wee Kiat, tasked to execute the vision of chef-owner Jonathan Koh who also helms Voyage. The French-trained chef is affable and competent – a safe pair of hands who doesn’t push the envelope, so your meal trundles along in predictable but well-executed fashion. 

We strike the middle ground with the S$208 menu, kicking off with perfectly pleasant snacks such as a lobster mayo salad packed into a charcoal tart shell and topped with pomelo and edible flowers. But we feel more affinity with a kueh pie tee shell filled with mushroom espuma and chopped bits – literally mushroom soup in an edible cup.

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You’ll soon notice that the chef practises a no-meat policy, so everything on the menu either used to swim underwater or squatted in a shell. Apparently, Cuisson opened last September as a beef-centric eatery, but changed tack when too many health-conscious diners baulked at the sight of big tomahawk steaks. Now it’s purely seafood-focused, lighter and more accessible, although we wouldn’t have minded a steak option. 

No matter. Our seven-course meal starts off proper with silky smooth chawanmushi royale – elevated savoury egg custard topped with crab meat and rice puffs so your teeth have something to chew. 

Yellowtail sashimi and uni don’t need much embellishment beyond a sweet-sour vinaigrette and herb oil, garnished with fruity cherry tomatoes and kumquats.  An octopus course is presented like the palette of an OCD artist – lovely vibrant colours and earthy tones of broiled and smoky chunks of tender tentacle paired with salty chorizo, dollops of herb mayo and dots of tomato coulis. 

Jeju abalone is not so tender – it’s tough and layered with foie gras, and lightly gratinated in its own shell. 

The chef’s signature is prawn pasta – a trifle too salty but very rich intense sauce of carabinero heads and dried shrimp enveloping house-made prawn tagliatelle. For the main, a fillet of Hokkaido samegarei – broiled and set upon wilted greens, roasted Jerusalem artichoke and a classic cream sauce. Again, textbook-perfect if not exciting.

Dessert offers some candy shop-like delights with a large tray of cakes presented to you from which to pick. The chocolate ganache and fresh orange tart are recommended; a whimsical pistachio strawberry layered cake has lovely nutty bitter notes; the baked cheesecake is custardy and borders on plasticky. 

If this were a cooking exam, Cuisson would be in the top percentile for presentation and technique. But that would be the basic standard for anyone cooking in the fine-dining realm. For the X factor – flair, originality, unique storyline – it lags, preferring to stick to the all too familiar Japanese ingredients, French-style trope. But if the occasion calls for something a little fancier, nothing too challenging, and price isn’t an issue, Cuisson more than fits the bill. 

Rating: 6.5