With a recent slew of new contenders and refurbished favourites, diners are spoilt for choice when it comes to modern European restaurants serving ambrosial cuisines in sharp, swanky settings
It used to be the yardstick for a fine dining in this town. It was the quality of the dish, its authenticity and the ambience, decor and the attendant trappings that impressed. I remember dining in Lafite for the first time somewhere in the early 90’s; it was a romantic restaurant that guaranteed to impress the ladies. I don't recall the finer details of the evening, only that I was enamored with my date and charmed by Chef Stefan Servin's creative French cuisine. He was succeeded by other excellent chefs and through the years, Lafite never failed to impress. But it was getting tired.
That is, until the Shangri-La hotel group decided to transform the Restaurant Lafite into something contemporary and modern, complete with a spectacular floor to ceiling glass wine display credenza artistically mounted with rows and rows of wine bottles. There is also the prerequisite walk in cellar with a collection of wines that was recently accorded the Best of Award of Excellence 2008 by Wine Spectator; a US-based magazine known for it’s in depth focus on wine. The award recognizes restaurants whose wine lists offer interesting selections, are appropriate to their cuisine and appeal to a wide range of wine lovers. The Best of Award of Excellence is only awarded to 802 restaurants worldwide out of over 4500 entries.
This new look also came with a new chef and a new philosophy in cooking, thus causing a wave in the local fine dining scene with its radical new look and taste. Serving up European cuisine with a contemporary twist, molecular gastronomy was the game in a stylish environment ahead of its time and competition; it made an impression and quickly garnered as many followers as it did detractors.
Today, the quality of the cuisine is still paramount where Lafite is concerned. But at the risk of typecasting, there are generally two types of fine dining customers. The first is what I call the Traditionalist – these guests just want comfort food, refined and not too complicated. The second is the Modernist – this group wants a total package of refined European cuisine served in unique chinaware and they want to be mentally stimulated. And they are willing to pay for the experience itself.
Well, after more than one and a half months of intense effort in designing the new menu, recently appointed Chef de Cuisine, Damon Campbell now offers you a different level of cuisine. With his signature dishes, he is committed to making his food fun and exciting, touching your five senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste. Yet, it all seems so familiar and comforting. While you enjoy such whimsical dishes such as "Inside Out Pizza" which comes with tomato cotton candy and crispy cheese wrapped around a thinly sliced pizza bread and "Caviar Doughnut" which is a delicious mini doughnut beautifully decorated with Oscietra caviar and liquid garnishes of chives, egg yolk and shallots, it is extremely easy to understand, yet so exciting at the same time. And you wonder why didn't I think of that?
Chef Damon comes with strong credentials, winning a list of prestigious awards and having previous professional stints including time at The French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, a three star Michelin establishment owned by world renowned Chef Thomas Keller.
Apart from the earlier mentioned dishes, we also tried Chef Damon's Lobster Parmesan. The lobster comes in thick slices, poached with small tomato stew as a base, and to this is poured in a wonderful parmesan spuma or foam. Now, this is where it gets interesting. This is a parmesan based "miracroix" (basically a stock which instead of using chicken or fish bones, it uses parmesan cheese as the base) it is as wonderful as it is expensive! It had lovely cheesy flavours without overwhelming the natural flavours of the lobster meat.
