Latest news with #MirkoFebbrile
Straits Times
29-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Straits Times
Food Picks: A celebration of spring and summer produce in Italian restaurant Somma's new menu
Italian restaurant Somma looks to keep the momentum with its first menu change for what it calls its Solterra season. PHOTO: SOMMA Food Picks: A celebration of spring and summer produce in Italian restaurant Somma's new menu SINGAPORE – After opening to much fanfare in September 2024 at lifestyle cluster New Bahru, Italian restaurant Somma looks to keep the momentum with its first menu change for what it calls its Solterra season. Sol refers to the sun, while terra means earth. The intricate dishes celebrate spring and summer produce, and I find myself enjoying severa l vegetable elements across the menu ($268++ for six courses). There is a four-course Saturday lunch at $168++ too. As always, the meal starts with a couple of welcome snacks – this time presenting the artichoke in two ways. First, it is served as a warm broth from a 'flask' made of artichoke, followed by farinata (chickpea pancake) topped with crisp mammole artichoke and house-aged perch lardo spiced with fennel and black cardamom. The first course showcases grilled fava beans studded with pickled pine nuts and drizzled with burnt lemon thyme-infused tomato water, and a delicate elderflower dressing. Served with this is an 'asparago zebrato', named so for the striped glaze on the white asparagus. The glaze is made with soya beans, oolong tea and asparagus water, while the stripes are made of black shallots infused with lapsang souchong tea. Highlighting the sea is a plump mussel and grilled razor clams dish, followed by the return of my favourite carrot spaghettone with sea snails and a rich mantis shrimp bisque. Somma's mussels and grilled razor clams dish. PHOTO: SOMMA But while the meat main of grilled milk-fed lamb is finger-licking good, it is the 'peasant salad' that is truly memorable. It features a medley of 26 seasonal ingredients – from fresh, grilled and dried flowers and vegetables to delicate leaves – seamlessly tied together with a dressing of oregano, whisky vinegar and blueberries. If anyone can get me to eat and truly appreciate my vegetables, it is Somma's Puglian chef-partner Mirko Febbrile. A millefoglie of layered lamb tongue slow-cooked in mead and aged lamb heart grated over the plate round off the dish. Loquats star in the refreshing pre-dessert plated within a large ice cube. Yogurt and almond kernel panna cotta is wrapped in a delicate mochi skin, then topped with a chilled broth of lacto-fermented loquats, ginger, eucalyptus honey and osmanthus sorbet. To finish, the main dessert highlights three types of corn – South American purple corn, Italian yellow corn and Hokkaido white corn – made into paper-thin wafers and paired with American Pale Ale ice cream and brown butter. Where: 04-02 New Bahru, 46 Kim Yam Road MRT: Great World/Fort Canning When: Till Aug 16, noon to 1.30pm (Saturdays), 6 to 10.30pm (Tuesdays to Saturdays), closed on Sundays and Mondays Info: Check out ST's Food Guide for the latest foodie recommendations in Singapore.
Condé Nast Traveler
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Condé Nast Traveler
Somma — Restaurant Review
What were your first impressions when you arrived? Just like the unveiling of a dish from under a cloche, Somma is unwrapped with a flourish. There's a sense of ceremony from the moment you arrive at the reception outside the fashionably austere entrance, where you're asked to pause before going in. When the sleek bronze doors eventually swing open, you're received by a welcome party of what looks like the entire restaurant crew. Behind them is a taste of what's to come—a quirky amuse-bouche laid out on an artfully decorated table. We don't want to spoil the surprise, so let's just say it could involve whole produce and some beeswax… What's the crowd like? Exuberant, suave Puglian chef-partner Mirko Febbrile is a local celebrity of sorts, so the dining room is often filled with Febbrile fans. Singapore foodies, dressed-to-impress date-night couples, and corporate types typically make up the rest of the crowd. What should we be drinking? There's an unconventional wine pairing menu that draws from Jacky Rigaux's 'geosensorial wine tasting' school of thought, a tactile wine appreciation approach that prioritizes mouthfeel over more analytical methods of assessment. But the restaurant's creative spirit can most truly be found in its non-alcoholic brews that double as a masterclass in ingredient circularity—a robustly delicious Carrot Kombucha, for instance, is magicked up using a base of red carrot scraps. Main event: the food. Give us the lowdown—especially what not to miss. This is Italian cuisine like you've never had it; a joyful, avant garde, circular take on la nonna's cooking that celebrates Puglian history. There's only one menu, a tasting option that changes with the seasons, which may feature dishes like braised and charcoal-fired pig snout paired with an umami black bread sauce that's seasoned with fried onion-scented breadcrumbs. Or a fantastically tasty coil of spaghettone slicked with a carrot reduction (it takes an astounding 20 kilograms of carrots to make just one kilogram of this), mantis shrimp bisque, and lichen oil. The restaurant's signature Somma Cheese Experience—an add-on where you're whisked into a separate room to taste a gamut of Italian cheeses that are infused in-house with unexpected flavorings like leftover coffee grounds—is a must-do. And how did the front-of-house folks treat you? One of Somma's principles is that guests should 'come as you are'. So there's no dress code, and the staff (whilst themselves draped in stylish robes) mirror this with their warm, bubbly, and down-to-earth approach to service. What's the real-real on why we're coming here? From start to end, a meal here is both a fine and fun experience. The best way to do it is to spend a day at New Bahru, the campus that the restaurant is located in—a hothouse of local shops, restaurants, and young creative businesses—with dinner at Somma as the perfect finish.
