SINGAPORE, Aug 24 — You would be hard-pressed to find a more idyllic place to dine at than Open Farm Community. Surrounding the greenhouse-like restaurant is an urban farm run by Edible Garden City, which grows all sorts of herbs on neat terraces, as well as fruit trees such as jackfruit and passion fruit, and vegetables like eggplant, zucchini and sweet potato leaves. There are two lawn bowling lanes as well as sculptures by a local artist dotting the landscape.
The farm doesn’t produce quite enough herbs and vegetables for the restaurant to bill itself as “farm-to-table,” but the kitchen does use whatever it can from its grounds, which explains its ever-changing menu.
The architect of this menu is chef Ryan Clift, but the man at the helm of the kitchen here is Daniele Sperindio (seconded from Clift’s Open Door Policy, where Sperindio is also head chef).
The selection of good eats is as charmingly rustic as the barnyard chic restaurant, with dishes such as roasted mangalica pork belly with apple and ginger salad (S$34 or RM102) and a pumpkin and parsley risotto with caramelised seeds and fresh herb dressing (S$26). It certainly helps that some of them are served on beautiful vintage French plates that make you feel like you are dining in some posh country home.
Some of the best things on the menu come from the pasta section. The team brought in a pasta machine from Italy that allows them to make any shape of fresh pasta they want, and they have put that contraption to great use.
The fresh pasta here is thick and sturdy: You have to try the rigatoni tossed in a delicious mix of local mushrooms, smoked pancetta, stilton and balsamic reduction (S$26). Dishes like this and the mud crab spaghettoni with Thai curry sauce, yellow squash, crispy shallots and Thai basil (S$28) show the kitchen’s ingenuity for balancing rustic culinary sensibilities with the integrity of the produce that its garden grows.
It is the simplest dishes here that impresses the most. A coal-baked omelette riddled with smoked haddock and tarragon, and swathed in a grain mustard Mornay sauce (S$24) is rich, comforting yet complex, and everything you want to inhale over a lazy brunch.
So, too, the roasted baby chicken (S$28) that is first brined before its breast is pan-seared and its legs made into a confit. The meat practically falls off the bone and is served with braised leeks, hazelnuts and a dark brown chicken jus that accents all the inherently deep, sweet flavours of the chicken itself.
When you have eaten your fill, take a walk around the property and have a chat with the farmers who seem more than happy to talk about the plants they grow. This is one of those places where you could while away more than a few hours, which means that making advanced reservations is the prudent thing to do.
130E Minden Road, opening hours: Monday to Friday noon to 3pm, 6pm to 10pm; Saturday and Sunday 11am to 10pm. — TODAY
