SG Food: Ikkoten Omakase – Kyoto-Style Kaiseki Dining Restaurant at Telok Ayer Street
Ikkoten Omakase located at Telok Ayer Street showcases culinary odyssey through the rich yet clean-tasting flavours of traditional Kyoto cuisine. Translated to English as “ Paradise on Earth”, the word “Ikkoten”or“一壺天” is derived from the Japanese legend about a magical jar that contains a magnificent world filled with fine wines and bountiful feasts. Helmed by Executive Chef, Brandon Low, a Singaporean trained under various Japanese chefs. Although Chef Brandon is young, he has close to 10 years of experience in Japanese cuisine.
The menu consists of Lunch Omakase range from S$88++ to S$138++ or 9-course Dinner Omakase at S$198++. To luxe up your omakase experience, you can go for their 11-course Hana Dinner Omakase for S$298++.Sharing what to expect from 11-course Hana Dinner Omakase. The dishes may vary as the chef curated the dishes according to the season’s ingredients.
Sakizuke- Chef’s Appetizer
We started off with homemade black sesame tofu with uni and dashi sauce.
Hassun- Seasonal Appetizer
Our appetizers consist of pickled vegetables topped with shredded bonito flakes, summer fruit fig with egg miso and yuzu, kabocha agedashi and seasonal lady’s finger fish ball to whet our palete before our omakase journey begins.
Suimono- Seasonal Clear Soup
For our soup, we had the Japanese seabass cooked in Kyoto-style green pea soup. Earthy, thick green pea soup and yet still tasted light in flavour.
Tsukuri- Seasonal Sashimi
Three-line grunt fish aka Isaki rolled with traditional sour plum soy sauce. The fish is slightly torched over binchotan charcoal before topping with Hokkaido Uni and poured over with sour plum soy sauce.
Featuring the Otoro, Bluefin Tuna Belly from Nagasaki surface charcoal grilled topped with bubble shoyu. The bubble shoyu is his own creation and it sort of substitutes the shoyu sauce that we usually dip with when we enjoy our sashimi. The combination works perfectly well. Tuna literally melts in your mouth and the shoyu sauce is not overwhelming too.
We had the Japanese sweet corn soup topped with tiny cute tomatoes to cleanse our palate before moving on to the next course.
Sushi- Chef’s Special Sushi
Chef Brandon showcases his signature dish. Instead of the familiar negitoro and uni handroll, he created these crispy crystal crackers topped with Negitoro and Hokkaido Uni/ sea urchin along with the seaweed soy sauce. Beautiful in visual and flavours are on point as well.
Yakimono- Seasonal Grilled Fish
We had the Japanese Spanish mackerel topped with umami burnt egg sauce along with Japanese sweet potato, ginger flower, and lime. Best to enjoy the meaty mackerel with lime first and followed by the coated egg sauce for enhanced flavour.
Takiawase- Seasonal Simmered Dish
We had Anago aka sea eel, which is the current in season. The eel is simmered with homemade egg tofu in a thicken dashi sauce and a tinge of yuzu zest for the final touch.
Shiizakana- Charcoal Grilled Beef
Hay smoked charcoal A5 Kagoshima wagyu beef with sesame ponzu sauce and bonito flakes.
Shokuji- Donabe Meshi, Miso Soup & Pickles
Another highlight is this umami cherry blossom shrimp collagen claypot rice with burnt miso soup and homemade pickles. The claypot rice is prepared with rich fish collagen dashi stock simmered for hours and topped with truffle caviar followed by the last touch of 24K gold to luxe it up.
The interesting part is that the chef wrapped the leftover rice nicely in the bamboo sheet for diners to bring back. I think this is the first-time seeing diners packed back the leftover from omakase.I had it for my lunch the next day. Interesting!
Mizugashi- Seasonal Fruits
For our dessert, we had matcha pudding, Shizuoka crown melon, Kyoho Grape and Muscat Grape.
To end the meal, we were served both matcha and houjicha drinks. The matcha is prepared in traditional tea ceremony style in front of us.
There has been an increase of Omakase restaurants with different concepts in recent years. If you are looking for a traditional Kaiseki experience with a twist of a modern approach, try Ikkoten Omakase.
Address: Ikkoten Omakase
86 Telok Ayer St,
Singapore 048469
Opening Hours: Monday- Saturday (Closed on Sunday)
Lunch 12:00PM-2:30PM
Dinner 7:00PM-10:30PM
Website: https://ikkoten.com.sg/