Gold out, Hibiki in – inside Singapore’s hottest new izakaya

Since its hoardings got here down in 1929, The Quadrant at 19 Cecil Road has been house to a number of Chinese language banks, and the proof remains to be down within the basement. Right here, the unique financial institution vault has been reimagined as a soigné, mood-lit non-public eating and tasting room, its partitions lined with staves – the person curved planks from retired Suntory distillery barrels nonetheless carrying a faint whiff of aged oak. It units the tone for what awaits upstairs: Barrel Story of Hibiki, a three way partnership between The Home of Suntory and chef Sho Naganuma of cult-favourite Torasho Ramen & Charcoal Bar in close by Tanjong Pagar.

Wallpaper* dines at Barrel Story of Hibiki, Singapore

The temper: wooden, fireplace and a financial institution vault

The constructing’s gently curved Artwork Deco facade was designed by Keys and Dowdeswell, the British agency answerable for a lot of what nonetheless stands on this a part of Singapore’s CBD, together with the Fullerton Resort, a number of blocks away on the mouth of the river. The interiors are a case research of how the previous of a heritage house will be put to genuinely elegant use. Tokyo designer Junpei Yamagiwa of Designpost has anchored the primary eating room round a 10-seat counter wrapping the central wood-fire grill, with darkish timber and textured stone maintaining the temper centered.

The double-height ceiling – a real rarity in Singapore eating places – offers the room a way of event that the remainder of the design works fastidiously to not oversell. Hibiki, Suntory’s premium blended whisky whose title interprets as ‘resonance’, supplies the conceptual framework, which the restaurant lists as fireplace, endurance, and pure concord. These usually are not simply advertising and marketing phrases right here. They present up within the Jenga-block-pattern ceiling, the barrel-wood gasoline stacked behind the cross, and the ceramic plate-ware, which is delicate and detailed sufficient to warrant a re-evaluation each time a dish arrives.

The meals: izakaya, upgraded

Naganuma’s menu is constructed for ingesting alongside, and it segues nicely. The archly-named Uni-corn Croquette – crisp potato shell, creamed white corn, sea urchin – pits sweetness towards brine and lets each win. A potato salad topped with cured egg yolk lands someplace between a aspect dish and a vegetarian steak tartare. The seafood donabe is the dish to order: each grain of rice arrives glossed and smoky, damaged up by the sudden saline punctuation of tobiko and bijoux cuts of squid and prawns. The wooden fireplace earns its maintain within the cooking somewhat than the air – you style it within the opening bowl of smoked nuts, within the grilled XL tiger prawns, and most memorably within the off-menu fish collar, which might, relying on season and availability, embody marlin and tuna, and needs to be requested if you e-book.

At the moment the one Singapore venue pouring Hibiki by the glass, Barrel holds one of many extra severe Suntory collections in Asia. The entry flight (S$38) presents Japanese Concord 3 ways – highball, rocks, mizuwari – and it’s much less a tasting train than an illustration of how radically the identical whisky shifts character relying on the way it meets water. The cocktail record has its personal methods: the Hibiki Champagne Model Highball arrives with out ice, its bubbles doing the work with out the stress of melting dilution, whereas the Hibiki Sling cheerfully faces off towards Singapore’s most iconic drink and roughly wins. The Barrel flight reaches vintages as much as 30 years previous, although at S$988, we recommend you come armed with a completely charged Amex.