The head chef at Ce Soir is called Seth Lai. I’m Seth Lui. Even our surnames are one letter apart. It was weird saying my own name so many times during dinner, but that coincidence didn’t induce favouritism.
Disclaimer: I had my wedding lunch reception at Ce Soir back in 2023, under a completely different chef and menu. Walking back in for dinner felt like visiting your old flat after someone redecorated. The location of the restaurant is the same, but everything on the plate isn’t.
Ce Soir wasn’t always Chef Seth’s restaurant. It opened under Chef Koh Han Jie cooking proper French fine dining, the version I got married with. From my chat with Chef, I gathered that the business struggled back then and Chef Seth stepped in as chef-owner, quickly adapting to what could save the restaurant.
Rebuilding the menu from the ground up, using European technique less as the focus and more as a backbone for something a lot more personal — his own childhood, filtered through an Asian sensibility he picked up along the way.
And as of this writing, the restaurant is mostly fully booked for weeks. Chef Seth also picked up the MICHELIN Guide Singapore Young Chef Award in 2024. One thing worth clearing up, since half the internet gets this wrong: Ce Soir is MICHELIN Selected, not starred (yet). The chef’s personal award and the restaurant’s own rating are two different things.
Regarding the space, there are four tables in the main hall and another two tucked into a private area, spaced out enough that you’re never eavesdropping on the next table. The florals that used to dominate the area have been toned down, and it feels less botanic gardens now, yet still retaining its charm.
What to order at Ce Soir
Dinner’s a full tasting menu from S$228++, so you’re not really choosing dishes so much as bracing yourself for what’s coming. First up, three small bites presented in a replica of Chef Seth’s family house.
The oyster didn’t do much for me, its actual flavour was buried under a sour balonglong granita that ended up being the more interesting element on the plate.
The Aji redeemed things, bright with tamarind punch.
So did the Wagyu, styled as a spiced dry curry with crab roe, small but inventive, an early sign of the Malaysian-leaning direction the rest of the night takes.
Things pick up properly with the Hokkaido scallop, turmeric and rempah doing an achar impression and blending perfectly with the shellfish’s sweetness.
Wintermelon, a soup with burdock root, snow crab, abalone, and somehow it tastes like a bowl of soup your rich Chinese auntie would make. There’s a smoked bonito note buried in there that hits harder than the delicate presentation suggests.
Kinmedai is apparently Chef Seth’s own favourite on the menu, and you can taste why he’d pick it. It’s built to mimic a Teochew-style fish head steamboat soup — a thick, creamy white sauce that tastes like it’s been simmered for ages with countless fish bones. The kinmedai’s fried scales are intentionally left on so you get a light crunch against the soft flesh underneath.
Don’t skip the Seaweed bread either — they could probably make a living just selling this bread. Three types of seaweed worked into the dough, a whisper of star anise, salt flaked over a glossy crust. Twenty-two attempts at this recipe, apparently, before the kitchen was happy with it. I too was happy.
Then there’s the Lobster, a sauce made with century egg, foie gras, curry leaf and chilli oil. Century egg and foie gras sounds absurd on paper, but the chef’s madness had crossed into genius territory. There’s a sambal-like richness in the flavour without any actual sambal, and scooping the sauce up with that seaweed bread leaves you wanting more of that umami bomb.
The Iberico pork is the one dish I would swap. Lots of fragrance coming off the aged mandarin peel and mustard kosho, but it doesn’t gel with the pork. If I went back, I’d pay the extra S$38 for the wagyu instead.
5-Grains, a dressed-up bowl of Malaysian fried porridge or claypot rice. It has bits of crispy grains that remind me of a claypot guo ba crust doing the heavy lifting and delivering excellent flavours. Reminds me of the carbs they serve at the end of weddings to make sure you’re full.
Then dessert starts with White peach, which was the one dessert that didn’t land for me. Real peaches are pleasant, sure. Just generic in a way nothing else on the menu was, and missing whatever makes the rest of the night feel nostalgic.
The Salted egg macaron with black truffle more than makes up for it, though, cleanly balanced between sweet and savoury.
Finally, Banana fritters in gula melaka close the whole dinner out, and this is the dish that sealed it. Banana cream cheese and parmesan is what makes this work, contrasting through the sweetness and crunch, turning a European-looking dessert into what a goreng pisang aspires to be. Simply the best single bite to end the night.
Who Ce Soir is for
Every course comes with a page from a hand-illustrated notebook to remind you of the childlike journey you’re on. A little watercolour, a breakdown of the ingredients, a memory in handwriting underneath. Although it sounds a little gimmicky, it isn’t. Mostly because the food backs it up. There’s even a closing note printed on the same lined paper: Tonight, a memory was shared. Corny? Maybe a little. I still liked it.
Here’s the honest caveat, though: how much this lands for you probably depends on whether you already know the flavours he’s referencing. The whole menu is built out of specifically Malaysian and Singaporean touchpoints: fish head steamboat, achar, sambal, fried porridge, goreng pisang, wrapped in fine dining technique. If you grew up eating versions of these dishes at home, each course does double duty: tasting good and meaning something.
Without it, it’s like an Asian remembering the joys of eating escargot as a kid in France — a vague vicarious experience.
This isn’t a fast dinner so budget two hours at least. Ce Soir isn’t a typical Tuesday-night dinner and is more for special anniversaries where conversation matters as much as what’s on the plate.
One thing before you book: there are no vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free or gluten-free accommodations. It won’t suit every table, but that uncompromising approach may be exactly why the flavours hit so hard.
How to get there
Ce Soir sits above a black-and-white colonial bungalow at Portsdown Road. Nearest MRT is One-North on the Circle Line, but it’s a long walk from there, so I’d just grab a taxi from home. If you’re driving, there’s free parking right beside the building, which in Singapore is a small miracle.
Do we recommend Ce Soir?
Yes, with a couple of caveats. Most of what lands on the table is excellent with punchy Asian notes, and the kinmedai, seaweed bread, and banana fritters alone justify the trip out. The pork and the white peach are the two weak links. But what sells this meal isn’t any single dish; it’s the personal storyline. Humble, familiar food, fish head steamboat, fried porridge, banana fritters, refined without losing the thing that made it comforting in the first place. Bring someone worth talking to.
People also read:
Which are the best restaurants in Singapore?
Where can you find the best omakase in Singapore?
The post Ce Soir Singapore: Chef Seth Lai’s French-Asian tasting menu appeared first on SETHLUI.com.