Yes it was one of the "original" fine dining places in SG with a stellar reputation, but judging from my recent experience it is now a sad shadow of whatever its former glories were. Arrived, got a polite but somewhat standard/perfunctory welcome from the maitre...d (who never interacted with us again for the whole evening). Servers were Ok but you could tell they were reciting a memorised script of a standard meet and greet. They were pleasant enough but not polished (eg neglecting to refill my water throughout, wrong utensil settings for the next course, etc). The young chap who was dressed as the sommelier did not offer me the wine list, even after I made eye contact with him whilst waiting for the course to start. I thought maybe he would come after the amuse bouche, but still no. My first proper course arrived and still no wine. I asked my waiter for the wine list. She got it (surely the sommelier should have stepped in at this point). I ordered a glass. She had no idea...rummaged around the wine fridge, couldn't sort it out. Went to ask for help. The "sommelier" finally got involved, found the bottle but it was empty or something, took ages to find another bottle and prep it. Finally came over, poured it, but no comment (let alone a polite "sorry") at all for the delay. After this debacle one would expect some better service - nope, no one came again to offer me a red for my meat course let alone dessert wines. As to the food, the menu choices were very standard (which is fine, if done well). However, many of the appetizers (both cold and warm ) were served with big dollops of caviar which to me is just a lazy way to mask the inherently unimaginative and boring cooking. The underlying ingredients themselves tasted bland, the sauces one dimensional. Same with the main courses - bland, boring, standard fare one could get in any big hotel formal restaurant. The Les Amis team might want to go to Zen or Odette (to name a few) and see how true fine dining should be done nowadays.More
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