Chef Christopher Millar. Photo: 1-Altitude. |
Christopher Millar's creations for a new fusion gastronomic experience at Stellar at 1-Altitude bring an interesting narrative to the quality, fresh produce he uses in his cuisine. While the gazpacho was a miss for me (I'm not too keen on anything related to oysters personally), the rest of the offerings for the night were more than excellent and showed a sense of credible daring of Chef Millar.
The rooftop bar.... |
The amazing view of the Singapore skyline from the 63rd floor of One Raffles Place, at 1-altitude |
Located right at the top floors of One Raffles Place and in the heart of Singapore's Central Business District, we were treated to amazing panoramic views of the city as part of the 1-altitude experience. With a great live band on the rooftop bar, the world's highest al-fresco bar offers an experience like no other. Sipping champagne on a windy clear evening here is a great way to unwind after a hard day's work at the office, and I would certain recommend it to anyone in need of a chill out place after work.
The private dining room at Stellar @ 1-Altitude. Photo: 1-Altitude. |
With the private dining room catering to parties up to 12 people, a gastronomic experience here will set you back approximately $2500. A six course "The Stellar Experience" comes at $140++ a pop, with prices going lower at $95 for a 4 course meal. This experience certainly doesn't come cheap, but it does offer a very 'atas' (Malay for 'up', denoting very posh) vibe around here. It also has a sushi and sashimi bar and the whole array of dessert offerings from sister establishment 1-caramel (more about that later). The dining area is quite large, and gives an air of light spaciousness, even in the night.
We started off with the amuse-boche, which was some tuna with tiny watermelon chunks. Nothing to write home about, but the freshness of the tuna along with the sweet refreshing taste of the watermelon was an interesting combination.
Yay! free bread basket with great spreads and toppings! Including the cod brandade. |
The Smoked eel, with capers, potatoes, and sea urchin sauce with cod brandade. |
Duck & Its Nest |
I liked this dish, creatively named "Duck and its Nest", a lot. It was one of my favourite dishes of the night. Inspired by what a duck eats, the ingredients around this dish effectively gave the duck, the star of the show, its due credence. The nutmeg puree/cream was a sweet, smooth touch, adding texture and balancing the otherwise savoury taste of the duck rilette. The foie gras ever so lightly adds the light touch of saltiness, and played out with the lovely crisp corncake, the play on textures and flavours was outstanding in this dish. The half boiled egg nicely fused everything together with gooey goodness. Heavenly, I must say.
White Gazpacho |
I've got to make this clear - I'm not a big fan of oysters, and have never been. This gazpacho, with oysters, was thus a little weird for me, but what I appreciated though, was the nice creamy sweetness of the almond in this white gazpacho. My throat though, was left a little itchy because of the almond, and the tomato essence, though a nice touch, was a little to faint for me to do a flavour recall of this traditional vegetable soup. The dish overall was light and pleasant, and even though I totally didn't like the oysters, the tiger prawns were a lovely touch. (would have liked to have more!)
"Japonaise". Photo: 1-Altitude. |
Next up was the "Japonaise", featuring crab as the mainstay of this dish. Crab and truffle omelette, crab and enoki pannacotta, swordfish and crab maki with white miso was served on a platter with a rather salty but cute-looking, petite Japanese river crab. I liked the maki, the crab meat tasted fresh and sweet, and had an overall nice, savoury wholesomeness. The river crab (yes, its edible), had a faint sweetness because of the limited amount of meat inside, and tasted like a salty M&M. Again, I have to say that I'm not much of a seafood person, but this dish didn't reinforce that.
That didn't prepare me for the next dish, "Victorian Lamb", a poached saddle of lamb with Imam Bayledi (basically braised [I think] eggplant stuffed with garlic, tomato and onion) and Egyptian Dukka (a herb nutty oily dip that was smothered over the Jerusalem artichokes). This was my favourite dish of the night (for the mains, beside dessert) because this was one of the most tender racks of lamb I've ever tasted, and the gamey taste was restrained - it was poached before it was roasted, I guess. The full, rich savoury flavour of the lamb packed a punch with the silky smooth texture of the Jerusalem artichokes (which strangely tasted like some form of potato) and the olive oil from the Dukka further smoothened it out. There was a slight spicy (?) twang from the Dukka that gave the smoothness of the artichokes a due justice. It was quite amazing. And oh, the Bayeldi was enough to make me faint, although I found it slightly oily, probably due to the virtue of it being Mediterranean food. Not that I minded anyway, since it gave me that happy, warm, contented feeling in my tummy.
Chef Millar and his assistant preparing the desserts platter, "The 1-Caramel Experience" |
The 1-Caramel Experience. Mmmmm. |
Just when you thought the night couldn't get any better, the desserts came. The famous 1-caramel experience features a Valrhona chocolate Bomb, baked alaska, cold lime souffle, caramel creme brulee with dulce le che ice cream and vanilla pannacotta with mango granite.
Valhorna Chocolate Bomb with white chocolate or caramel snow by the side. |
First, on the valrhona. The smoky richness of the chocolate attacked my tastes with vicious decadence, with the coy interplay of tart berries dancing through, creating a rich medley of indulgence. This was too good, too sinful. The liquid bomb contained some praline cream inside, further adding to that sweetness overload. For you chocolate lovers out there, this is really quite heavenly. I'm literally praising this to the skies, and that I don't normally do, so yes, it's pretty damn good from where I come from.
The baked alaska was also a highlight. I would have preferred for the (brownie?) base layer beneath the meringue to be softer and lighter, but the intense chocolate and milky sweetness made up for it somewhat. The meringue icing was of course, a different sort of as sweet as the perfect girl next door but in a sharper, less indulgent sort of way. Sugar-sweet rather than milky sweet, it provided a good contrast of sweetness in terms of flavour. Yes, I love it, and I should really avoid going technical into desserts.
The cold lime soufflé was good, but was sadly quite underwhelmed by the sheer decadence by its other offerings on the platter. Creamy sweet with the right balance of tartness to make you not forget this is lime you're tasting.
The Caramel Creme Brulee and the dulce le che ice cream |
The Caramel creme brulee was devoured exceptionally quickly by my dining counterparts, but from what I gather, it was a great dish on its own as well. I did try the dulce le che ice cream though, for ice cream made with almost-burnt condensed milk, it certainly tasted like it, with a faint smokiness amidst the very overwhelming sweetness.
The vanilla pannacotta was just so smooth it was unbelievable laoban-beancurd like. It was sweet, but perhaps having myself indulge in the other more decadent offerings was a mistake on my part, because it did come across as a little bland, with the overwhelming flavours still lingering in my tastebuds. Okay, no entirely my fault. Try this first before going to the others, because it was really really one of my more favourite desserts in terms of texture and flavour balance, because it matched really quite interestingly with the mango granite, which came across as slightly syrupy and rich for a granite.
So you can see, this decadent dessert experience was really exceptional, and really does deserve a blog post on its own.
The overall experience I had here was, to be intentionally pun-ny, nothing short of stellar.
Thank you Denyse for graciously inviting us to be part of this invited food tasting session. The food, ambience and experience was unforgettable, and I foresee I'll be coming back for more.
Stellar at 1-Altitude
One Raffles Place
(62nd Floor)
Singapore 048616
Email: info@one-altitude.com
Tel. +65 6438 0410
Weekdays: 11.30am to 2.30pm; 6pm to 12mn
Weekends: 6pm to 12mn
Stellar at 1-Altitude
One Raffles Place
(62nd Floor)
Singapore 048616
Email: info@one-altitude.com
Tel. +65 6438 0410
Weekdays: 11.30am to 2.30pm; 6pm to 12mn
Weekends: 6pm to 12mn
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