One Michelin Star (5 years running)

Chef-Owner: David Pynt

Style: Australian-style barbecue, wood fire grill

Menu: Made daily

Site: https://burntends.com.sg/

 

We were able to get a reservation for Burnt Ends on Thanksgiving Day. Brandi read somewhere that you can get on a waitlist, and they will notify you if they get an opening. We signed up for Thanksgiving and it worked. We had to give a card as the spot has a non-refundable fee in case of cancelation. I understand this and am fine with it. They open booking 30 days out and it is booked every time we look.

Menu from our night

 

This location is in an area called Dempsey Hill. We would say this is an area that has very expensive homes. They are quite large and nice. It is not as easy to look up a home’s value here, but they are multi-million-dollar homes. There are multiple restaurants in the area, and they have beautiful landscaping and lighting. You know you are in a nice place immediately upon arrival. This location is not close to an MRT station, so we took a Grab. We walked a few feet to the restaurant however, we had to use Google and go around the corner to check a door as the restaurant had no sign. The name was very small on the door, engraved on the side in a statement piece.

Restaurant Area

Front Door

We were seated at the Chef’s counter seating. This was a bar that runs the length of the room and on the other side are the grills and prep area. They prepare all of the dishes about three feet from you. We watched them prepare dishes without even bothering with what we wanted to order. We picked some items and some wine to start and continued watching the preparation. Seeing all the meat we chose a red from Australia.

Chef Counter, Grill area

Red hot wood coals

They have two large brick ovens at one end of the room that only serve as wood burning inside them to keep the coals going for the grills. They did toast some bread at the edge of these ovens but that was it. They would scoop out red hot coals and place them under the maze of grills from time to time. They adjust the height of the grills to accommodate what they were cooking. The combination of smells was incredible. They only use wood to cook here and somehow, I did not smell that smokey smell like I figured I would. I only smelled the delicious aroma of the various types of meat and seasoning in the air. This is also the type of restaurant where the Chef is present. We saw him many times during the meal even preparing and serving. Everything is made to order. We watched them make a sauce for every dish and they must go through 500 spoons because everything is tasted before it is allowed to leave the kitchen. If it does not taste good and look good it will not leave. These are part of the reason they have had a Michelin star for five years running.

Chef’s Counter Table

 

We started with a salad with shallots and a vinaigrette. It was accompanied by some freshly made sourdough they make in the building as they also have a bakery. The order things come out depends on how long they take to cook so the next item out was a serving of pork belly. I have had pork belly in many places. This one was the best I have tried so far. It was more like the best pork chop you could have than what the typical pork belly looks like. Each dish had its own sauce. We saw them making and tasting the sauces and they have a specific chef that only does sauces, a saucier. The sauces on the dishes we had were phenomenal. The protein flavor and cook could stand on their own, but these sauces made it out of this world.

Salad

Vindaloo Pork Belly

During the wait, the expediter would talk to us. He was very serious about the food and strictly controlled the kitchen. He would then joke with us and other guests at the table. The next to arrive was the Venison in an achiote and coffee sauce. We have never tasted anything like this, and it was also delicious. These cuts of meat were impeccable as well. They were so tender they almost dissolved when you ate them. We were waiting for an order of Karubi ssamjang (Wagyu beef with a Korean sauce) that was recommended. They may have forgotten to place that order, and I was asked if I wanted short ribs. Of course, my answer was yes, as I love short ribs and I had a feeling these would be phenomenal.

Short Ribs, Not on the menu

Venison, Achiote andCoffee

As I said above, the menu is made daily. When we arrived at 830, they told us they were out of a few things. While we sat there, I heard them announce they were out of four other items. Short ribs were not on the menu so for whatever reason they made them, and I was lucky to get some. I was right about my hunch as they were delicious. The seasoning was incredible, and the bone came out with minimal effort. Our order of Karubi then came out almost like a dessert, but it was beef. This beef was also perfectly flavored and tender. The flavor of the beef and seasonings was delicious enough and they had the Korean sauce that made it another level.

Karubi Ssamjang

This was our second Michelin-star restaurant. Both were incredible and I can now relate to the star rating of these two and look forward to the next time we go to one. If you are in Singapore and crave some top-notch wood-fired grilled dishes, get on the wait list at Burnt Ends.