Goodwood Park Hotel, Singapore
A Winter Indulgence Menu · An In-Depth Gastronomic Analysis
I. Venue & Ambience
Gordon Grill occupies a storied position in Singapore’s fine-dining landscape, housed within the venerable Goodwood Park Hotel on Scotts Road — a landmark building whose Edwardian-era bones lend the restaurant an air of colonial gravitas that few establishments in the city can replicate. The dining room operates as a deliberate counterpoint to the minimalist modernism that dominates contemporary restaurant design: dark timber panelling, upholstered seating in muted jewel tones, white-draped tables set with weighty silverware, and subdued amber lighting that flatters both the food and the diner.
The spatial arrangement encourages unhurried conversation. Tables are generously spaced — a scarcity in Singapore’s typically compressed restaurant environments — and the acoustics have been managed such that the room hums with a low, convivial murmur rather than the intrusive roar common to open-plan venues. Staff navigate the floor with practised discretion, calibrating their presence with the quiet professionalism one associates with old-world European service traditions.
During the Winter Indulgence menu period, the atmosphere acquires a particular seasonal warmth: the combination of rich sauces arriving at table, the occasional theatre of a flambé burner, and the sensory envelope of amber light against dark wood creates an experience that feels genuinely cocooning. It is a room that rewards the decision to linger.
II. The Winter Indulgence Menu — Conceptual Framework
Gordon Grill’s ‘A Winter Indulgence’ menu is a curated seasonal offering available through 31 March, structured to move from ocean to land with escalating richness. The menu’s conceptual logic is sound: it begins with the briny freshness of French oysters, ascends through fungi and grains in intermediate courses, and culminates in the theatrical centrepiece of a 1.5 kg Wagyu tomahawk. Desserts, rather than functioning as a coda, assert themselves as co-equal highlights — a rarity and a commendation.
The kitchen draws on a classical French grammar — thermidor, flambé, jus, risotto — while permitting the quality of primary ingredients to determine the character of each dish. This is a cuisine of restraint expressed through abundance: premium produce, generous portions, and a consistent refusal to overwork what is already excellent.
III. Dish-by-Dish Analysis
Amuse-Bouche: Kimchi Chicken Tartlet
The amuse-bouche — a Kimchi Chicken Tartlet — functions as a brief orientation to the kitchen’s sensibility. The tartlet shell offers a thin, crispened base with a mild butter undertone; the kimchi brings a controlled fermented acidity and residual heat that primes salivary response without overwhelming. Colour-wise, the filling presents in rusted ochres and pale gold, a warm visual signal consistent with the cosy register of the room.
Texturally, the contrast between the shell’s brittle snap and the yielding, moist chicken filling is competent, though the spice level is calibrated for broad palatability rather than complexity. As a threshold dish, it succeeds: it marks a transition from the exterior world, signals flavour intent, and departs from memory before becoming intrusive.
Tsarskaya Oysters — Fresh and Baked Thermidor
The oysters constitute the menu’s most immediate declaration of quality. Tsarskaya oysters, sourced from Brittany’s protected estuaries, are among the finest of the flat oyster category — smaller in cup than the Pacific variety, denser in brine, with a finish that carries notes of iodine, cucumber water, and cold mineral. Served on crushed ice with mignonette and lemon, the raw presentation is immaculate: shells are cleanly opened, liquor is intact, and each piece arrives in its natural cupped half, oriented to prevent spillage.
The visual palette of the fresh oysters is all cool grey-green shell against the white of crushed ice, the flesh a translucent silver-cream with pale khaki periphery — colours that communicate freshness before taste can confirm it. The mignonette, traditionally a reduction of shallots and red wine vinegar, provides a sharp, tannic counterpoint that makes the oyster’s salinity bloom on the palate.
The Baked Oysters Thermidor represent a more emboldened interpretation. The thermidor preparation originates in classical French cuisine, where the term — borrowed from the Revolutionary calendar — has come to denote a cream-enriched, cheese-gratiné finish applied to shellfish. Here, the sauce is built on a reduction of cream and Gruyère-adjacent cheese, then applied to the shucked oyster and finished briefly under a salamander or broiler until the surface achieves a light bronze.
The resulting hue is golden-amber at the crust transitioning to a cream-ivory beneath — a visual register of warmth that contrasts pleasingly with the grey-green shell. The texture presents in three registers: the surface offers a faint crispness at the cheese crust; the sauce body is viscous and supple; and the oyster itself, cooked just barely through, retains a silkiness that distinguishes it from overworked shellfish. The balance between oceanic salinity and dairy richness is well-resolved: neither element suppresses the other.
Cooking Method: Oysters Thermidor
The fundamental technique underlying the thermidor preparation is a compound sauce finished under radiant heat. In execution: a beurre blanc or cream base is reduced with a dry white wine and a soffritto of shallots, then enriched with grated hard cheese. The oyster, still in its shell, receives a spoonful of this sauce and is placed under a broiler at high heat — typically 200–230°C — for two to four minutes until the surface caramelises and the sauce attains the characteristic spotted-gold finish of a proper gratin. The critical control point is time: excess heat transforms the oyster from silken to rubbery, and the sauce from supple to broken. At Gordon Grill, this calibration is well executed.
Sautéed Chanterelle Mushroom with Onsen Egg
The chanterelle dish enters the menu as a transitional course — bridging the seafood openers and the heavier meat-forward plates. Chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius) are among the most texturally complex of common edible fungi: their ridged underside and folded cap structure creates a surface that holds butter and aromatics while their flesh, when properly cooked, offers a yielding resistance distinct from the cottony collapse of button mushrooms or the firm chew of shiitake.
The mushrooms are presented over a mound of mashed potato, its surface pale ivory, smooth, and glossy — a register of starch-bound butterfat. Shaved truffles sit atop the ensemble: paper-thin, dark brown lamellae whose primary contribution is olfactory, releasing their characteristic compound 2,4-dithiapentane on contact with the residual warmth of the dish. The onsen egg, cooked at 63–65°C until the white is barely set and the yolk remains liquid-gel, provides a secondary sauce when punctured — its deep amber-gold yolk a chromatic anchor among the earth browns and cream of the plate.
The dish’s primary liability is textural monotony. Every element — mushroom, potato, egg yolk, truffle — occupies the soft-to-liquid register. The natural jus offers some savouriness but insufficient structural contrast. A component introducing crunch, acid, or bitter notes would recalibrate the dish’s register substantially. As it stands, it is a well-made but ultimately one-dimensional plate that invites the diner to eat quickly before interest wanes.
Morel Mushroom Risotto with Shaved Truffles
The risotto redeems and then exceeds the expectations set by the preceding mushroom course. Morel mushrooms (Morchella spp.) are arguably the more culinarily distinguished of the two fungi employed in this menu: their honeycomb surface architecture concentrates cooking fat and sauce within each cavity, their flavour carrying a complex earthiness with overtones of smoke and nutmeg absent from the chanterelle’s lighter, more apricot-tinged profile.
The rice itself — Carnaroli or a comparable high-starch variety — has been treated with the discipline the technique demands. Risotto requires the progressive addition of warm stock, with constant agitation to coax amylopectin from the grain’s exterior into the surrounding liquid, creating the characteristic creamy consistency without resorting to cream as a crutch. The grains at Gordon Grill retain their structural integrity — al dente at centre — while the liquid surrounding them has achieved the silky, flowing consistency Italians call ‘all’onda’ (wave-like): when the plate is tilted, the risotto should move as a slow, cohesive mass rather than a rigid mound.
Visually, the dish presents in warm ivory with deep brown morel fragments distributed throughout and translucent truffle shavings laid across the surface. The overall hue-register — cream, chestnut, charcoal — is autumnal and resonant with the Winter Indulgence framing. The aromatic impact, combining the musty complexity of morel with the more pungent signature of truffle, fills the immediate air around the plate — a quality that enhances appetite before the first bite.
Cooking Method: Morel Risotto
Dried morels are reconstituted in warm water, releasing their concentrated glutamates into the soaking liquid, which is then incorporated into the cooking stock for intensified umami depth. The base of the risotto begins with a soffritto of finely minced shallot in butter, into which the dry rice is toasted until the outer starch becomes translucent. Warm stock — preferably mushroom-enriched — is added in ladleful increments, each addition absorbed before the next is introduced. After approximately 16–18 minutes, the risotto receives a final mantecare: cold butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano beaten in off-heat to emulsify the surface starch into a glossy, integrated sauce. Morel pieces, pre-sautéed in butter and seasoned, are folded in at this stage. Truffle is shaved tableside or immediately before service to maximise volatile aromatic retention.
Wagyu Beef Tomahawk Steak — 1.5 kg, Flambéed Tableside
The tomahawk is the undisputed centrepiece of the Winter Indulgence menu, and Gordon Grill marshals every theatrical resource available to amplify its arrival. The cut itself — a bone-in ribeye with an extended rib bone left intact for presentation — weighs 1.5 kg and derives from Wagyu cattle, a breed designation that encompasses a spectrum of Japanese and cross-bred cattle selected for their genetic predisposition to intramuscular fat deposition, producing the characteristic marbling patterns that distinguish premium Wagyu from commodity beef.
The tomahawk is brought to the table on a purpose-built carving board, the long rib bone — bleached ivory against the char-darkened surface of the meat — serving as both handle and visual centrepiece. At tableside, the flambé is executed: a measure of spirit is poured over the steak and ignited, producing a brief crown of blue-orange flame that caramelises the surface sugars and residual fat while releasing aromatic aldehydes and pyrazines — the Maillard compounds that define ‘grilled meat’ as a universal sensory category.
Cooked to medium as recommended — internal temperature approximately 57–60°C — the cut achieves a cross-section of graduated hues when sliced: a dark, caramelised exterior crust in deep mahogany transitioning through a grey-brown band of fully-cooked muscle to a rosy-red centre where the myoglobin proteins have been only partially denatured. This thermal gradient is both an aesthetic pleasure and a functional one, offering multiple flavour profiles within a single portion.
The intramuscular fat, rendered at serving temperature, saturates the muscle fibres in a way that creates a buttery, almost liquescent mouthfeel entirely distinct from leaner beef. Flavour complexity is high: iron-rich, deeply savoury, with a long finish that cycles through umami, salt, and a faint sweetness from the caramelised crust. The red wine jus — almost certainly a classical red wine reduction with veal stock, aromatics, and butter finish — provides the acidic and astringent counterbalance the fat necessitates.
Accompaniments of roasted potatoes, baked tomato, and sautéed vegetables perform supporting roles without distraction: the potato provides starch and crunch; the tomato contributes acidity; the vegetables, a chromatic green counterpoint to the dominant reds and browns of the plate. This is a dish designed to be shared and to be remembered.
Cooking Method: Wagyu Tomahawk
A cut of this mass requires a reverse-sear or low-temperature roast protocol to ensure uniform internal doneness before the final crust development. In reverse-sear, the steak is brought to an internal temperature of 52–54°C in a low oven (100–120°C), rested briefly, then subjected to high-heat searing — either in a cast-iron pan or on a charcoal grill — for 60–90 seconds per side to develop the Maillard crust. The tableside flambé at Gordon Grill serves a dual function: it finishes the crust surface with an additional Maillard event and provides the dramatic presentation that justifies the dish’s position as the menu’s centrepiece. Post-flambé rest of 5–8 minutes allows myofibrillar tension to relax and intramuscular juices to redistribute before carving.
Seared Red Emperor Snapper
The Red Emperor Snapper (Lutjanus sebae), pan-seared and presented with truffle petit pois and fresh maize, offers a counterpoint to the preceding beef’s intensity — a reminder that restraint and transparency of technique can be as impressive as theatrical abundance. The skin, rendered to a crisp golden plane through careful management of pan heat and pressing technique, presents in amber-gold with dark char notes at the edge. The flesh beneath is white-cream, flaking in clean transverse planes when probed — a textural quality that indicates a protein gently and precisely cooked through without the structural collapse that overcooking induces.
The truffle petit pois introduces a further layer of chromatic and textural contrast: the vivid chlorophyll-green of young peas against the neutral tones of the fish, with truffle lending its characteristic aromatic depth. The split fish jus — a light, clear sauce derived from roasting fish bones and aromatics — extends the ocean register without adding body that would overwhelm the delicate flesh. This is a dish that demonstrates culinary confidence through what it declines to add.
IV. Desserts — The Unexpected Summit
Crêpe Suzette
Gordon Grill’s Crêpe Suzette is a benchmark preparation of a classical French dessert that has largely disappeared from Singapore’s fine-dining landscape, rendered obsolete in many establishments by the perceived labour-intensiveness of the tableside service protocol. Its survival at Gordon Grill is a statement of institutional commitment to tradition that deserves recognition.
The crêpe itself — thin, pale gold, with lacy, slightly crisped edges where the batter spread thinnest in the pan — is bathed in a sauce built on caramelised sugar, butter, orange juice, and orange zest, enriched with Grand Marnier or Cointreau and brandy. The flambé ignites the alcohol, burning off the harsh ethanol while leaving behind the aromatic esters of the liqueur and the caramelised complexity of the sauce.
Visually, the presentation is warm amber-gold: the sauce glossy and translucent against the pale crêpe, the ice cream a white ovoid that melts at its perimeter into the warm sauce, creating a pool of ivory-gold at the plate’s base. The thermal contrast — warm crêpe and sauce against cold vanilla ice cream — is one of the most reliable pleasure mechanisms in dessert cookery, and the Suzette exploits it precisely. Flavour vectors include caramel sweetness, citrus brightness, vanilla roundness, and the faint toasty note of flambéed spirit. It is, by any considered measure, exceptional.
Cooking Method: Crêpe Suzette
The crêpe batter — eggs, flour, butter, milk, a measure of orange liqueur — is rested for a minimum of 30 minutes before cooking in a lightly buttered flat pan to develop a thin, even disc. The suzette sauce begins with dry caramelisation of sugar, deglazed with fresh orange juice and orange zest, then mounted with cold butter to create a beurre noisette-adjacent emulsion. Grand Marnier and brandy are added, the pan tilted toward an open flame or the surface ignited by long match to flambé. Crêpes are folded to quarters, submerged in the sauce to absorb, and served immediately with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. The brandy’s higher-proof alcohol catches more readily; the Cointreau provides aromatic complexity at lower temperatures.
Morello Cherry Tart
The Morello Cherry Tart represents a different order of excellence from the Crêpe Suzette — quieter, more structurally oriented, relying on precision in pastry craft rather than theatrical chemistry. The tart shell is the dish’s defining element: pale gold at the rim darkening to a deeper amber at the base, the surface smooth and matte with the characteristic slight sheen of well-made pâte sablée. The texture when bitten is the first surprise — a clean, short snap that yields to a crumbling richness derived from a high proportion of cold butter worked into flour with sufficient sugar to achieve tenderness without fragility.
Morello cherries — darker, more acidic, more complex than their sweet cherry counterparts — provide a fruity counterpoint whose tartness cuts through the pastry’s butteriness. Their deep ruby-to-near-black hue provides dramatic chromatic contrast against the pale tart shell. The combination is classically resolved and executed with the confidence of a kitchen that understands what it is making.
V. Scorecard Summary
Dish Rating Key Note
Kimchi Chicken Tartlet (Amuse-Bouche) 3.8 / 5 Functional; pleasant spice; brief
Tsarskaya Oysters — Fresh 4.0 / 5 Impeccable brine; clean minerality
Tsarskaya Oysters — Thermidor 4.2 / 5 Creamy, gratiné; well-balanced
Sautéed Chanterelle Mushroom 3.8 / 5 Textural monotony; earthly flavour
Morel Mushroom Risotto 4.5 / 5 Al dente perfection; aromatic depth
Wagyu Beef Tomahawk Steak 4.5 / 5 Transcendent marbling; theatrical
Seared Red Emperor Snapper 4.0 / 5 Crisp skin; clean, restrained
Crêpe Suzette 5.0 / 5 Exceptional; rare tableside theatre
Morello Cherry Tart 5.0 / 5 Superior pastry; tartly balanced
VI. Overall Assessment
Gordon Grill’s Winter Indulgence menu is a coherent, well-paced expression of classical grill cuisine adapted for a contemporary fine-dining context. Its greatest strengths lie at its poles: the raw seafood openers communicate terroir and freshness with confidence, and the desserts — particularly the Crêpe Suzette — achieve a level of execution that places them among the finest of their kind currently available in Singapore.
The intermediate courses are more variable. The risotto represents the kitchen at full stretch — technically precise, aromatic, and satisfying. The chanterelle dish, by contrast, suffers from an overreliance on soft textures and would benefit from a reconsideration of structural contrast. The tomahawk, as a set piece, is beyond reproach: the quality of the Wagyu, the drama of the tableside flambé, and the precision of the cooking deliver on every promise the menu makes.
What distinguishes Gordon Grill from its peers is not innovation — the kitchen makes no pretense of molecular gastronomy or conceptual provocation — but the institutional confidence to execute classical techniques at a standard that many younger establishments cannot match. The service reinforces this register: attentive without intrusion, knowledgeable without condescension.
For the diner prepared to commit time, appetite, and a willingness to be guided by tradition, the Winter Indulgence menu offers a thoroughly satisfying evening. It is available through 31 March and is recommended particularly for the risotto, the tomahawk, and — above all else — the Crêpe Suzette.
Gordon Grill · Goodwood Park Hotel, 22 Scotts Road, Singapore 228221
Tel: +65 6730 1744 · Nearest MRT: Orchard (NS Line) · Daily: 12pm–2:30pm, 7pm–10:30pm