Modern French Restaurant, Singapore Botanic Gardens
THE RESTAURANT
Roia occupies a position that is almost unfairly beautiful. Tucked inside E.J.H Corner House — a colonial conservation building that once served as the private residence of the Assistant Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens — it inherits a sense of quiet history that no amount of interior design money can manufacture. The name itself, Roia, is a quiet nod to that legacy. You arrive through the Botanic Gardens, the air thicker and greener than the city just beyond the treeline, and by the time you reach the entrance, the meal has already begun.
The restaurant is helmed by Chef Priyam Chatterjee, an Indian-born chef trained in the classical French tradition. He is most notably the youngest recipient of the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole — the Order of Agricultural Merit — awarded by the French government in 2019 to individuals who have made meaningful contributions to agricultural practice and its surrounding industries. He trained under Chef Jean-Claude Fugier at La Maison, a three-Michelin-starred institution, and that rigour shows in every plate that leaves his kitchen. What distinguishes Chef Priyam, however, is not the awards but the sensibility: a genuine curiosity about Singapore, its flavours, its street corners, its textures — and a desire to fold that curiosity into the French canon without flattening either tradition in the process.
AMBIENCE
The ground floor houses the Private Salon, an intimate space seating up to ten, suited to small gatherings where the conversation is meant to be the event. The main dining room, called The Balcony, sits on the second floor and overlooks the gardens through floor-to-ceiling glass. The light changes through the meal — golden and warm at lunch, blue-tinged and cinematic by dinner — and the trees outside are close enough that on windy days, you feel as though the room breathes with them.
The interiors are composed rather than decorated. Rattan-backed chairs in warm neutrals, dark wood furnishings that absorb rather than reflect light, white and gold accents applied with restraint. Nothing announces itself. The palette echoes the landscape outside: muted greens, warm tans, the occasional glint of something precious. It is what designers call quiet luxury and what diners simply call a room that makes them feel good without knowing exactly why.
The service is attentive in the way that fine dining demands but rarely achieves — present without hovering, knowledgeable without performing. Staff speak about the dishes with genuine familiarity, not scripted recitation. When a sauce is poured tableside, it is done with care, not theatre.
THE MEAL — FOUR-COURSE LUNCH ($98++ per person)
AMUSE-BOUCHE
Before the four courses arrive, the kitchen sends out three small bites. These are not preliminary — they are a thesis statement.
Roia Toast
The base is a “crystal” toast made with kudzu powder — a starch derived from the kudzu plant, used widely in Japanese cooking and less commonly in French contexts. The dough is baked and then dehydrated over two full hours, a process that drives out almost all moisture and leaves behind something translucent, almost architectural, with a snap that registers in the jaw before the flavour follows. It is topped with shaved Iberico pork and a curried mayo.
The reference is explicit: this is the curry puff, the gold-standard Singaporean street snack, rendered in the language of haute cuisine. Chef Priyam has said it was the first thing he ate upon arriving in Singapore. That detail matters. This is not fusion for the sake of novelty. It is an act of memory, of genuine affection for a place, translated into a two-bite form that is both witty and technically demanding.
Texture: The toast shatters rather than breaks. The mayo underneath cushions the impact. The pork, cured and thinly sliced, adds fat and silk. Hues: Pale gold verging on translucent, the warm orange-yellow of the curry mayo, the deep rose of the Iberico. Flavour arc: Warm spice first, then the sweetness of good pork, finishing with a dry, clean crunch.
Hamachi, Ikura, Yuzu
A small tart, precisely made. The hamachi — yellowtail — is mild and buttery beneath the ikura (salmon roe), each pearl carrying a small burst of salt and sea. Yuzu, the Japanese citrus, is present as a fragrance more than a flavour — a lift rather than a note, cutting the brine without competing with it.
Texture: The tart shell offers a clean crack. The ikura beads are taut, then yielding. The fish beneath is almost liquid in its softness. Hues: Deep amber roe against pale cream, the tart shell a warm biscuit gold. Flavour arc: Salt, then fat, then a bright citrus exhale at the back of the palate.
Pickled Cucumber, Daikon, Crème Fraîche
The third amuse-bouche is the palate cleanser of the trio, though it is no less considered. Pickled cucumber and daikon — both fermented with clean acidity — are set against the cool weight of crème fraîche. Edible flowers sourced directly from the Botanic Gardens complete the plate, tying the garden outside to the table within.
Texture: Crisp and slightly resistant from the pickling, then smooth and cool from the crème fraîche. Hues: Pale jade green, ivory white, the small bright spots of the edible flowers — violet, yellow, blush pink. Flavour arc: Sharp at first entry, softening through the dairy, ending clean.
FIRST COURSE — Mille Feuille Saint Jacques
The mille-feuille, in its classical form, is a pastry construction: thin layers of puff alternating with cream, stacked to dramatic height. Chef Priyam retains the architecture but reinterprets every element.
Here, paper-thin pastry sheets — fired to a crisp so fragile they are almost translucent — are layered between raw hand-dived scallops. The scallops are served completely uncooked, which is a statement of confidence in both sourcing and technique. Good scallop needs nothing done to it except to be handled with respect. These are sweet, plump, and firm without any of the rubbery density that heat can introduce.
The accompaniment is a basil and orange vinaigrette, bright and herbaceous, with a French-inspired curry emulsion that skews aromatic rather than spicy — more cardamom and turmeric than chilli, a fragrance rather than a heat.
How it is constructed: The pastry sheets are made by rolling laminated dough to near-transparency, cutting to size, and baking between two flat trays to prevent any puff. The scallops are sliced horizontally into medallions, seasoned only with salt and a brush of the vinaigrette. Assembly is vertical, alternating sheet and scallop, finished with a pool of the curry emulsion around the base.
Texture: The contrast is the dish. Brittle, shattering pastry against the yielding, almost creamy raw scallop. Each bite requires you to press through resistance before arriving at softness. Hues: Ivory and pale gold stacked in thin lines, the bright green of the basil oil tracing the plate, the warm yellow of the curry emulsion pooled at the perimeter. Flavour arc: Butter and crisp first, then the clean sweetness of the scallop, lifted by citrus and closed with warm spice.
BREAD COURSE
Roia serves bread not at the start of the meal but between the first and second courses. The kitchen explains this as a commitment to temperature progression — the meal moves from cold preparations to warm, and the bread marks the transition point.
Two slices per diner: a brown rye sourdough, dense and tangy, with a crust that holds genuine resistance; and a brioche that has been buttered and seared on the flat-top, giving it dark caramelised edges and an almost custard-soft interior.
Both are served with a seaweed butter sourced from a small-batch producer in France. The butter is deeply umami — salt, ocean, a faint iodine complexity — and it pairs differently with each bread. Against the sourdough’s acidity, it becomes savoury and round. Against the brioche’s sweetness, it reads almost like miso caramel.
Hues: The sourdough is dark umber with a pale crumb; the brioche is burnished gold at the edges bleeding into a pale yellow interior. The seaweed butter is pale green-grey, flecked with darker seaweed threads.
SECOND COURSE — Fungi & Corner
This is the signature dish. It appears on both the lunch and dinner menus and, having tasted it, that makes complete sense — it is the dish that most purely expresses what Roia is attempting.
Mushrooms — dried first to concentrate their flavour, then infused with sage and rosemary — are cooked low and slow into a velouté. A velouté is one of the five French mother sauces, made classically with stock and a roux, finished with cream. Here, the cream is replaced with almond milk, which keeps the texture smooth and the weight light while preserving the necessary richness. The result is a sauce that coats the spoon without dragging on the palate.
At the centre of the bowl sits a rosti — a disc of finely grated and pan-fried potato, cooked until the exterior is deeply golden and the interior remains slightly yielding. On top of the rosti, fresh truffle is shaved generously, its earthy perfume rising immediately upon arrival at the table. A single confit egg yolk completes the construction — the yolk cooked slowly in oil at low temperature until it sets to a jammy, rich consistency but retains a deep amber colour and a lacquered sheen.
Garlic and chive flowers are scattered across the surface, their mild allium brightness preventing the dish from collapsing under its own indulgence.
Cooking Instructions — Fungi & Corner (Home Interpretation)
For the mushroom velouté: Begin with a selection of dried mushrooms — porcini and shiitake work well. Rehydrate in warm water, reserving the soaking liquid. In a wide pan, sweat shallots and garlic in butter until translucent. Add the mushrooms and cook until they begin to colour slightly. Add fresh sage and rosemary — two sprigs each — and allow the herbs to bloom in the fat for thirty seconds. Pour in the reserved mushroom liquid, straining it to remove any sediment. Add unsweetened almond milk in a ratio of roughly 1:1 with the mushroom stock. Simmer for twenty minutes, then blend until smooth. Pass through a fine sieve. Season with salt, white pepper, and a small amount of sherry vinegar for acidity. Keep warm.
For the rosti: Grate floury potatoes on the large side of a box grater. Squeeze out all moisture in a clean cloth — this step is critical; any remaining water will cause the rosti to steam rather than fry. Season with salt and a small amount of nutmeg. Form into discs approximately 8cm in diameter and 1.5cm thick. Cook in clarified butter in a non-stick pan over medium heat, pressing lightly, for six to eight minutes per side until deeply golden and cooked through.
For the confit egg yolk: Separate egg yolks carefully, keeping them intact. Submerge in olive oil in a small saucepan. Cook at 63°C for forty-five minutes — a kitchen thermometer is necessary here. The yolk should be set but remain jammy and vibrant in colour. Remove carefully with a slotted spoon.
For the truffle: Use fresh black truffle if available; otherwise, a good quality truffle oil applied sparingly at the last moment will approximate the aromatic effect without the earthiness of the real thing.
Assembly: Pour the velouté into a warm bowl. Place the rosti at centre. Rest the egg yolk on the rosti. Shave truffle over the top. Garnish with chive flowers or thinly sliced fresh chives.
Texture: Multiple registers at once. The velouté is silk. The rosti is crunch at the exterior, yielding inside. The egg yolk is dense and jammy. The truffle shavings are papery and delicate. Each component is individually complete; together, they form something that is more than the sum of their parts. Hues: Deep umber and brown in the velouté, bright gold of the rosti, the near-black of the truffle shavings, the amber lacquer of the egg yolk, the pale purple-white of the chive flowers. Flavour arc: Earth and forest on entry through the mushroom and truffle, then the fat richness of the egg yolk, then the bright clean cut of the chive flowers, then a long, warm finish.
THIRD COURSE — Brittany Chicken
The Brittany Chicken is a lunch exclusive. It is also the most explicitly narrative dish on the menu — an act of translation between two culinary cultures that manages to feel neither forced nor academic.
Hainanese chicken rice is perhaps Singapore’s most beloved dish: poached chicken, rice cooked in the poaching stock, served with chilli sauce and ginger paste and a clear broth on the side. It is simple, precise, and deeply comforting. What Chef Priyam extracts from it is not the recipe but the logic — the relationship between a restrained, clean-flavoured protein and the rich, stock-saturated element beside it.
The chicken is a Brittany-reared bird, a French designation that signals a specific breed and farming standard — these birds are known for their dense, flavourful flesh and thin, delicate skin. The breast is cooked carefully — just past the point of resistance, slippery and smooth under its thin skin — and garnished with microgreens. Beside it, a leek tart: wafer-thin shortcrust pastry, a filling of slow-cooked leeks (which, when cooked long enough, become jammy and intensely sweet), topped with finely grated black truffle.
The sauce — a Crème de Volaille, or poultry cream — is poured tableside from a small jug. It is made from the chicken’s own cooking juices, reduced and mounted with cream, infused with cumin. The cumin reference is subtle but significant: it connects the dish not just to Hainanese chicken rice but to the broader South and Southeast Asian spice vocabulary that underpins much of Singapore’s food culture.
A dairy-free sour cream made with almond milk is served on the side — cooling, lightly acidic, a counterpoint to the richness of the sauce.
Texture: The chicken is silken at the surface with a slight resistance through the breast. The tart base shatters. The leek filling yields completely. The truffle shavings melt almost instantly. Hues: Pale gold skin on the chicken, the deep green of the microgreens, the ivory-white of the tart interior against its golden pastry case, the near-black truffle a counterpoint to all of it. Flavour arc: Clean and neutral from the chicken on entry, deepening through the sauce’s cumin and poultry richness, then the leek tart pulling the dish into something sweeter and more complex.
DESSERT — Valrhona Dark Chocolate Gâteau
Valrhona is a French chocolate manufacturer whose couvertures are used as a benchmark across fine dining — consistent, deeply flavoured, with a bitterness that is complex rather than harsh.
The gâteau arrives as a composed plate rather than a slice: dark chocolate ganache at the centre, the surface smooth and lacquered; a middle layer of biscuit-like crumb that adds structural contrast; candied hazelnuts scattered across the plate, their caramel coating cracked and golden; shards of burnt milk — milk solids caramelised past sweetness into something toasty and slightly bitter; and a quenelle of salted caramel ice cream positioned at the perimeter.
The burnt milk chards are the most interesting element. They are made by cooking whole milk until it splits and the solids brown against the pan, then lifting them off and allowing them to cool into irregular, glassy pieces. They taste of toasted dairy — like the fond left in the pan after making beurre noisette, only chilled and brittle. Against the ganache’s intensity, they provide contrast and a faint savouriness.
The salted caramel ice cream is measured in its salting — enough to register, not enough to distract. It is the mediating element: cold against warm, pale against dark, sweet against bitter.
Texture: The ganache yields immediately, dense and glossy. The crumb in the middle snaps and then dissolves. The hazelnuts resist, then give way to a chewy centre. The ice cream is smooth and cold. Hues: The deepest browns and blacks of the ganache and burnt milk chards, the amber of the caramel, the pale beige of the ice cream, the gold of the hazelnuts. Flavour arc: Bitter dark chocolate first, then caramel warmth, then the toasty smokiness of the burnt milk, then the cold salt-sweet of the ice cream resolving everything into a clean finish.
PETIT FOURS
Two small sweets close the meal. The Sea Salt Caramel Jaggery Tart is elegant — jaggery being an unrefined cane sugar from South Asia with a molasses depth that refined caramel lacks. The Strawberry Pâte de Fruit is a small square of concentrated fruit gel, the strawberry flavour extracted to its most essential form, bright and slightly tart, cutting through any lingering richness with the efficiency of a palate reset.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Roia is a restaurant working at the intersection of two things that do not always coexist easily: technical mastery and genuine emotion. The cooking is precise and controlled — every texture deliberate, every flavour relationship considered — but the menu reads like the journal of someone who has fallen in love with a city and is trying to find ways to say so that are not sentimental.
The four-course lunch at $98++ is a serious but not prohibitive entry point. The dinner menus — Signature at $188++ and Experience at $288++ — represent a fuller expression of the kitchen’s ambitions. The setting is singular: there is no other fine dining room in Singapore that looks directly into the Botanic Gardens through full-height glass, no other kitchen working from a colonial building with this particular relationship to the landscape outside.
The restaurant is open for lunch Friday through Sunday, and for dinner Wednesday through Sunday. It is not halal-certified.
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Address: 1 Cluny Road, E.J.H Corner House, Singapore Botanic Gardens, Singapore 259569 Reservations: +65 8908 1705