Located in Sofitel Singapore City Centre along Wallich Street, Racines is a restaurant that features authentic French cuisine as well as refined local Chinese cuisine. The word “Racines” being French for “roots”, the restaurant focuses heavily on seasonal, local and organically grown produce.
The herbs used in the restaurant and bar are primarily from the hotel’s herb garden. The interiors of Racines gives you a good idea of the ideology behind the restaurant, with modern marble and monochrome furniture paired with the warm wood counter tops and cabinetry. Racines is the proud flagship restaurant for the newest Sofitel in Singapore serving breakfast, lunch and dinner to both locals and tourist alike.
The restaurant has a carefully chosen selection of wines that can be seen along with its food menu. A good white wine to pair well with most of the Asian dishes would be the Henri Bourgeois Les Baronnes Sancerre Blanc from Loire Valley, France. The wine is very crisp and dry which helps to cut the overall richness of Chinese cooking.
Start your meal off on a high with Burrata (V&N), Italian burrata cheese, fig marmalade, tarragon pesto and grilled sourdough bread. The creamy and mild saltiness of the cheese pairs well with the slight sweetness of the marmalade and the tarragon adds lovely herb taste and aroma.
Fans of wagyu, look no further then the 48 Hour Slow-Cooked Wagyu Beef Cheek, accompanied with truffled mashed potatoes that is surprisingly fluffy instead of the usual heavy common mash as well as fresh seasonal greens such as carrots and asparagus. Diners do not even need a knife as the flavourful meat pulls apart effortlessly.
Recommended mains, try Frog which is frog legs stir-fried with spicy Szechuan salt to a delectable crisp on the outside yet extremely moist on the inside. Served with dried chili, ginger, scallions and Chinese wine for that “fiery” punch. The dish is generously sized serving two people, and it is truly reminiscent to a classic dish you can find at traditional Singaporean eateries (hawker centres) all over the island. To complement the dish, order the Fried Rice with Pork & Prawn which had delicious “wok hei” and goes very well with the stir-fried frog legs.
For dessert select the Paris-Brest made together with hazelnut praline mousseline, choux and caramelised Hazelnuts. A relatively heavy dessert with lots of hazelnut goodness, even so the dish is not overly sweet and the pastry is well baked.
Moelleux takes at least fifteen minutes bake time from ordering and it is certainly worth the wait especially for chocolate lovers. Sinfully rich Valrhona chocolate fondant cake that oozes a thick lava of sublime liquid chocolate when cut, best taken with the house-made vanilla ice cream and sea salt sable. Something magical happens when you savour a mix of chocolate, vanilla and sea salt all at once, we call it an enlighten state of gastro-paradise.
ADDRESS:
9 Wallich Street, (5th floor), Sofitel Singapore City Centre, Singapore 078885
PHONE: +65 6428 5000
WEBSITE: www.sofitel-singapore-citycentre.com/gastronomy/racines/