Reignite your love for food and drink at one of the most exciting restaurants in Asia.

By Melanie Lee

It is best to make an occasion out of dinner at Tippling Club, one of the most progressive and well-regarded dining establishments in this region since it was established in late 2008. For one, it is advisable to book way in advance at this cosy, industrial-chic, 38-seater restaurant, preferably reserving the counter seats by the open kitchen. It is from this strategic position that you can observe the bustling kitchen and bar at work with their alchemic concoctions, and where founders Ryan Clift and Matthew Bax will probably banter with you about their food and drink respectively. Also, don’t bother driving given the substantial amount of alcoholic consumption that will occur – each course is paired with a cocktail from their five-course or ten-course degustation menus. You’re definitely in for an all-out tipple from Bax, who is a world-renowned, award-winning mixologist no less. Finally, come with an open mind. This is a restaurant that defies dining norms, so chuck out your knowledge of dining fads and just come with an empty stomach and adventurous taste buds.

“We want to take our guests out of their comfort zones – I don’t want them to know exactly what they’re going to get and then thoroughly delight them with what they receive!” says British-born Executive Chef Ryan Clift of the ambiguously-worded items on their menu such as  ‘Escargot’ and ‘Aloe Vera’. However, you can be assured of painstaking explanations once the dish is served in front of you. Clift, who was previously the Head Chef of acclaimed restaurant Vue de Monde in Melbourne, is absolutely meticulous as he muses about his culinary experiments and anecdotes that led to each creation.

The wonderful thing about the food at Tippling Club is that while it always takes you by surprise, it also sticks to the foundation of what delicious food is about – the freshest of ingredients (their seafood supply comes in daily from Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market) and made with plenty of heart and passion. For example, the re-interpretation of chilli crab came about from Chef Clift’s appreciation of a dish of the same name from his favourite seafood restaurant in Singapore. Tender loving care was also evident with dishes like the Surf ‘n’ Turf where a beautiful piece of wagyu was cooked sous vide for 48 hours at 72 degrees. And there are also some unforgettably zany personal touches like bourbon-infused carbonated grapes for the amuse bouche which were an absolute delight to pop into the mouth. Admittedly, my review of the food is a bit blurry here as I was getting rather distractedly merry while swilling the rather ironic The Importance of Being Earnest cocktail, but suffice to say that I’ve never left a restaurant so thrilled before with this realisation that eating could be such a sacred, exploratory process if the food was prepared with utmost deliberation and imagination.

“My aims when creating a dish are primarily to create a depth and range of flavours, and secondly to create something that is visually endearing. Flavour must always come first and foremost, and this is achieved through the use of quality ingredients, plenty of experimentation and a knowledge of how to bring out the best in those ingredients,” Chef Clift explains of his unique approach which he refuses to categorise. (Tip: don’t mention ‘molecular gastronomy’ unless you want to see plenty of eye rolling.) And as he regales us of tales of passionate chefs who swim in the sea to catch their own seafood or refuse to cook for more than four diners every night, I realise that Tippling Club is one of the few restaurants that I’ve come across that has authentic ideals about what the dining experience should be like. Their utopian and artistic imagination when it comes to food and drink is absolutely infectious and something that every epicurean should experience at least once in his or her life.

Tippling Club
8D Dempsey Road
Singapore 249672
Tel: +65 6475 2217
Web: www.tipplingclub.com

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