{"id":63505,"date":"2026-06-25T01:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=63505"},"modified":"2026-06-25T01:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:34:08","slug":"1887-by-andre-raffles-singapore-review-whimsical-grandeur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=63505","title":{"rendered":"1887 by Andr\u00e9, Raffles Singapore review: whimsical grandeur"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Eight years after closing Restaurant Andr\u00e9 in 2018 at what he called \u2018a moment of perfection\u2019, the Taiwanese chef Andr\u00e9 Chiang is back in Singapore<\/a>. He has chosen to return inside one of Asia\u2019s 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 \u2013 the hotel\u2019s founding \u2013 gives the 42-seat restaurant its name, and its culinary conceit: a menu that moves through time rather than through courses.<\/p>\n

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Wallpaper* dines at 1887 by Andr\u00e9<\/h2>\n
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The mood: whimsical grandeur<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Inspired by the idea of a leafy, tropical conservatory, the Bangkok-based interior designer Bill Bensley has kept the room’s colonial bones \u2013 arched colonnades, original herringbone parquet \u2013 while imprinting his trademark extravagance into every surface. Towering metal-foiled Traveller’s Palms rise toward a trompe-l\u2019oeil 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.<\/p>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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 \u2013 its stools monogrammed, its marble top deep enough to dine at \u2013 accommodates walk-ins and solo diners. The room is unapologetically theatrical, and no one minds at all.<\/p>\n

The food: time, unravelled<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Chiang spent over a year in Raffles Singapore\u2019s archives, rifling and leafing through sepia menus from the hotel\u2019s past. What he found was quietly startling, not least wild rose ice cream, turtle soup as a Victorian luxury, and Duck Apicius roasted with ancient Roman spice. The result of all this gastro forensics is a menu that Chiang has conceived as a time machine in which each course represents a different era, and each table, depending on what is ordered, sits in a different year on the 1887-to-present continuum.<\/p>\n

In practice, this means an intriguing trawl through nearly 60 dishes \u2013 Victorian, Singaporean and Chiang’s personal signatures all present simultaneously \u2013 that dismantles the conventional tasting sequence entirely. For those who prefer a guide, three formulas named after French cultural figures \u2013 Monet, Eiffel, and Bernhardt \u2013 offer a curated path through the labyrinth.<\/p>\n

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Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

But the invitation to roam freely is the point. A preview tasting yielded L\u00e9gumes en Vessie Sarah Bernhardt \u2013 vegetables cooked inside a pig’s bladder using a Belle \u00c9poque technique all but vanished from contemporary kitchens \u2013 alongside a more contemporary East-meets-West Blanquette de Bak Kut Teh and a Green Curry King Oyster Mushroom that needed, besides sheer culinary chutzpah, no historical justification at all. \u2018You can stop anywhere you want,\u2019 Chiang says. \u2018Mix and match. Decide which time period you want to go to.\u2019<\/p>\n

Unlike his previous restaurants, which he tends to close just at the height of their fame and move on, 1887 by Andr\u00e9 is conceived as something more permanent \u2013 a place, he says, that generations of diners can keep coming back to.<\/p>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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\"1887\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(Image credit: Photo by 1887 by Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Appropriately, the kitchen is helmed day-to-day by Ben Wang and Roy Kuo, both trained and seasoned by Chiang at RAW in Taipei, a restaurant he ran, he says, as \u2018a gallery, a museum, an exhibition hall\u2019 whilst staging seasons of grand classic French cooking and VR dinners before closing it at the end of 2024. A culinary academy will open in its place later this year.<\/p>\n

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