Time Out’s reviewer called this the single clearest standout among all starters: “rich, deeply savoury and slow-cooked until the onions are meltingly sweet beneath a gratinated cheese crust.” The French onion soup is a reliable index of a kitchen’s patience and discipline — caramelising onions correctly requires 45–60 minutes of unhurried low-heat cooking, and shortcuts announce themselves immediately in acidity and pale colour. Chef Hoja’s version passes that test. The broth achieves a deep amber-brown, carrying the mahogany sweetness of properly reduced alliums. The crouton float beneath the gratin lid — the canonical Gruyère and Emmental combination, blistered into bronze under the broiler — provides structural contrast: crisp resistance at the edges, yielding to a soaked, bread-pudding-like centre. The soup below is not merely a liquid but a concentrated fond, fat-enriched and wine-punctuated. This is the dish to order if you arrive uncertain about the kitchen’s intentions.

Baby squid — chipirones in Spanish, a Basque-French crossover dish — arrive stuffed with a forcemeat of chorizo, fragrant with smoked paprika and fat. Dressed in parsley, lemon, garlic, and olive oil, the preparation is fundamentally Mediterranean in character: bright acid against the savoury depth of cured pork, the squid acting as both vessel and protein. Texturally, the dish operates in contrast: the exterior of the squid, correctly cooked to just-tender (overcooked squid being the cardinal sin of seafood preparation), provides gentle chew, while the interior chorizo stuffing is yielding and fatty. The olive oil pools in the serving dish, catching green flecks of parsley. Visually, the dish presents in muted ochre and white, punctuated by the vivid herb oil. It is not the most technically demanding item on the menu, but its precision — the avoidance of rubberiness, the balance of acid — makes it a quietly confident opener.

The benchmark dish by which a French kitchen of this type should be judged — not because it is the most creative item on the menu, but because it cannot be faked. Time Out’s reviewer noted the beef “yields at the slightest nudge of a fork, soaking up all that glossy, wine-dark sauce alongside a plate of smooth and buttery mash.” That descriptor — the glossy sauce — indicates a properly reduced braise, one that has been cooked long enough for the collagen in the beef to convert to gelatin, giving the sauce body and the lip-coating quality that separates a genuine bourguignon from a stew merely coloured with wine. The mash alongside is Robuchon-school: cream-heavy, butter-mounted, unreasonably smooth. One suspects the ratio of potato to dairy is something a dietician would find alarming. Colour-wise, the dish presents in near-black: a deep garnet-to-mahogany sauce the hue of old Burgundy in poor light, the pearl onions and mushrooms ghosting through it like pale planets. It is a study in the aesthetics of long cooking.

En papillote — sealed in parchment — is one of the oldest French cooking methods, trapping steam within the parcel so the fish poaches in its own juices alongside aromatics. The technique is essentially a sealed microclimate: the parchment billows in the oven as steam builds, then collapses as it cools. Opening it at table releases an aromatic rush of herbs, lemon, and butter simultaneously. HungryGoWhere’s reviewer noted that the salmon “comes out perfectly tender and silky, while herbs, lemon and butter give it a refreshing and piquant boost.” The flesh should present in that specific shade of cooked salmon — a pale, faded coral, opaque to the edge but not flaking in the overcooked manner. Its flavour is clean and direct; the technique concentrates rather than complicates. It is, perhaps, the most appropriate dish on the menu for Singapore’s climate — light, aromatic, restorative — though this very restraint means it risks being underestimated.

This is the most conceptually ambitious dish on the menu and, perhaps, the most divisive. Time Out described it as “a cross between Hainanese chicken rice and paella but with pilaf rice and uni cream,” noting the rice as “deeply flavoured and unmistakably chicken rice-esque, though slightly softer in texture.” The accompaniment of uni cream is a direct nod to the Robuchon aesthetic — sea urchin as a sauce component, contributing oceanic brininess and fat-soluble richness — while the rotisserie chicken above it brings the crackled, rendered skin of the classical French rôtisserie. The chilli sauce on the side is a studied provocation: Southeast Asian heat placed deliberately beside luxury product. At $98++, it represents Chef Hoja’s clearest autobiographical statement, a dish only possible from someone who has spent decades in both French fine dining and Singapore’s hawker culture simultaneously. Whether it justifies its price is a matter for individual appetite. What is not debatable is that it is being thought about.

The dish that made The Plump Frenchman famous on social media, and the one most worth analysing for the gap between spectacle and substance. A large copper or steel tray of mousse is carried tableside and portioned directly onto the guest’s plate by a staff member — a service ritual that references both the classic French gueridon tradition and contemporary theatrical dining. The question any serious reviewer must ask: does the experience hold up once the theatrics end? The answer is largely yes. Multiple sources describe the mousse as achieving the correct structural paradox of the form — simultaneously airy and dense, the cocoa intensity amplified rather than diluted by the incorporation of whipped cream and egg white. The foam structure should be fine and uniform, collapsing only slowly under the weight of a spoon. The hue is a deep, unsweetened-chocolate brown — near black — with the matte surface interrupted by a dusting of cocoa powder that adds a dry, bitter note against the sweetness beneath. Eatbook’s review notes it as “not overly sweet,” the crucial calibration that separates mousse from confection. The mousse “flows gently, forming a rich yet airy cloud that dissolved the moment it hit the tongue.” At $14++, it is one of the most honest propositions on the menu.