Eight years after closing Restaurant André in 2018 at what he called ‘a moment of perfection’, the Taiwanese chef André Chiang is back in Singapore. He has chosen to return inside one of Asia’s most mythic addresses: the former Raffles Grill at Raffles Singapore, a high-ceilinged room that has hosted coronation dinners and colonial galas since 1887. That year – the hotel’s founding – gives the 42-seat restaurant its name, and its culinary conceit: a menu that moves through time rather than through courses.
Wallpaper* dines at 1887 by André
The mood: whimsical grandeur
(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by André)
Inspired by the idea of a leafy, tropical conservatory, the Bangkok-based interior designer Bill Bensley has kept the room’s colonial bones – arched colonnades, original herringbone parquet – while imprinting his trademark extravagance into every surface. Towering metal-foiled Traveller’s Palms rise toward a trompe-l’oeil glass ceiling complete with powder blue sky and wispy white clouds hand-painted by Bensley, whilst mechanised punkah fans, their blades cut in the shape of great green hearts, flap slowly overhead.
(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by André)
(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by André)
A curved glass cabinet at the entrance displays the hotel’s silverware collection, including antique pieces buried in the hotel grounds during the Japanese occupation and unearthed after the war; and at the far end, a raised semicircular bar – its stools monogrammed, its marble top deep enough to dine at – accommodates walk-ins and solo diners. The room is unapologetically theatrical, and no one minds at all.
Read Full Article At Source
