10 hours ago
Chef-owner of Singapore's AMI Patisserie wins Pastry Talent of the Year Award 2025 by La Liste
If you haven't already savoured the delectable creations at Japanese dessert café AMI Patisserie – arguably Singapore's most scenic – then here's some news that should convince you to travel down for a bite. Its chef-owner Makoto Arami, an established third-generation sweets master hailing from Japan's Shiga prefecture, has just been crowned the Pastry Talent of the Year 2025 by global gourmet ranking guide La Liste, under the La Liste Pastry Special Awards. Take that as a testament to just how much his bakes are worth the calories.
Chef Makoto is the only Singapore-based chef and one of the very few from Asia to be recognised in this year's La Liste Pastry Awards. In last year's edition, chef Janice Wong did our nation proud by being the first Singaporean to score the Pastry Innovation Award.
Started in 2021, AMI Patisserie had humble beginnings as an online fine pastry business during the Covid-19 pandemic. After seeing fast success and a surge in popularity, Chef Makoto ventured out to start his current brick-and-mortar concept, marrying European pastry techniques with fresh seasonal Japanese ingredients.
And this isn't any other Japanese sweets café, because AMI Patisserie is rooted in tsudo – a concept where desserts aren't simply meant to be the finishing touch to your meal, but rather, something to be enjoyed as and when you want, perhaps even as a meal on their own. As such, there is much emphasis placed on the whole experience of dining at AMI, and its zen, wood-furnished Kyoto-like space within the grounds of a colonial bungalow at Scotts Road is a reflection of that. Instead of being crammed in for the sake of profit maximisation, tables are spaced within comfortable distance of each other, and the floor-to-ceiling windows create an illusion of seamlessness between the indoors and the greenery outside.
AMI Patisserie is located at 27 Scotts Road, a seven-minute walk from Newton MRT station. It's a stone's throw from other F&B establishments including The Bar Kakure, Iru Den, and Buona Terra. and see the full list of La Liste 2025 Pastry Special Award winners.
