Most restaurants treat seasonality like a calendar obligation—swap the tomatoes for pumpkins, call it autumn, move on. Ingleside has taken a more ambitious approach: three menus a year that chart an actual progression. Ignition, Embers, Inferno. From spark to blaze. It's the kind of concept that could easily collapse under its own weight, but Ingleside has the technical chops and restraint to pull it off.
Embers, the middle act, is where things get interesting. This is the transitional menu, the bridge between summer's brightness and winter's intensity. Fuller proteins—pork, duck—take centre stage. Dry-aging extends, fermentation deepens. Medium-aged miso replaces younger versions, adding layers of funk and complexity. It's cooking that requires patience, planning and a certain faith in time's transformative powers.
The smart move is claiming a seat at the open kitchen counter. From here, you're not just dining; you're watching the mechanics of it all. Flames leap. Smoke curls. The chefs work with the kind of focused efficiency that comes from doing something difficult repeatedly until it looks easy. This is theatre, but the functional kind—no gratuitous flourishes, just craft on display.
The amuse bouche arrives as a vertical tower of five distinct bites, an architectural feat that's almost too pretty to dismantle. Almost. There's gazpacho, a green tomato pot, salmon mousse, flambadou sawagani crab and smoked Iberico pork belly. Each one is a complete thought, a miniature argument for a particular flavour direction. The crab, flambéed tableside with flying fish roe, sets the tone: this is a menu interested in fire's capacity to transform, not just char.
Then comes the Truffle Toast, which sounds straightforward until you learn the brioche has been aged for sixteen weeks and transformed into a miso mousse. Black truffles, obviously. White balsamic to cut through the richness. They bring out pure brioche miso on the side so you can taste the ingredient before and after its metamorphosis. It's a small gesture that reveals the kitchen's pride in process.
The Scallop Carpaccio is cured in kombu and finished with oscietra caviar and scallop garum. Again, they offer a taste of the garum itself—an invitation to understand the building blocks of flavour. It's educational without being pedantic, the mark of a kitchen confident enough to let you peek behind the curtain.
Hen of the Woods brings together fermented shiitake, foie gras, fig and hazelnut, then hits it with a fifty-year-old Pedro Ximénez vinaigrette. Fifty years. The number hangs in the air like a challenge. This is ingredient sourcing as status symbol, but it's earned—the vinegar's sweetness and acidity cuts through the earthiness and richness with surgical precision.
The Icon Wagyu Striploin arrives after thirty-two days of dry-aging, served with beef tallow pomme purée and pickled radish. The aging has unlocked those nutty, almost cheesy notes that make properly aged beef taste like an entirely different animal. The radish provides necessary sharpness. The pomme purée is obscenely smooth. It's a main course that understands restraint—three elements, perfectly calibrated.
Dessert—White Chocolate and Berries—feels almost gentle after all that intensity. Raspberry ice cream, white chocolate crémeux, cassis jelly, honey tuile, macadamia crumb. It's pretty and balanced and doesn't try to compete with what came before.
At $208++ for six courses, Ingleside is making a compelling argument for value. This is technique-driven cooking that doesn't stint on luxury ingredients or portion size. The progression from Ignition through Embers to the eventual Inferno suggests a kitchen that's playing a longer game, thinking in arcs rather than moments. That kind of ambition, properly executed, is worth sitting at the counter for.
a. 49 Tras St, Singapore 078988
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