At Restaurant Labyrinth, chef Han Li Guang continues to rally around Singaporean cuisine, having fun with flavours, techniques and local produce

What’s the story?

At Restaurant Labyrinth, tucked away in a corner at the Esplanade, each dish remains at the centre of a Singaporean’s ongoing search for identity and belonging. The culinary traditions of our little red dot are a source of pride and joy for chef Han Li Guang (also a Robb Report Singapore Thought Leader), who flies the flag high at his fine-dining restaurant. For the chef who pioneered the Neo-Sin culinary movement in his early days (starting 2014), with avant-gardism now history, he continues to rally around Singaporean cuisine, having fun with flavours, techniques and local produce. The one-Michelin-starred restaurant is an enterprise of national pride, where truly Singaporean stories are told through food, presentation and artwork.

What’s the food like?

Singaporean dishes, both forgotten and famous, are elevated and refined with premium ingredients and old-school methods, if you can believe it. Char Kuay Teow, for instance, features seabass fish maw noodles that retain an al dente quality you’d expect of traditional flat rice noodles. Braised and steamed at first, it is stir-fried with liver sausage, eggs, fried lard, and for a little sweetness, homemade oyster sauce and abalone liver. It is finally crowned with a piece of charcoal-grilled South African abalone, the cherry on top of a fantastic dish.

Do also look forward to the Bak Kut Teh Consommé, a heartwarming meatless broth made with only dried shiitake, garlic, spices and white pepper; and best of all, the Chicken Rice, a popular hawker dish and reflection of his Hainanese heritage. French GG poulet breast, layered with chicken farce and chives, is poached to perfection and accompanied with donabe—a Jasmine and Japanese Koshihikari rice blend that’s stir-fried with shallot oil and aromatics before hitting the steamer with ginger, shio kombu, pandan leaf and old mother hen stock—pickled zucchini and pineapple, grilled chicken hearts and clarified chicken soup that’s finished with spring onion oil. The blended chilli sauce it comes with is an original recipe, handed down from Han’s grandmother.

For something quite simple at first sight, Labyrinth’s chicken rice is a force to be reckoned with, as is the Teh Tarik Toast, a breakfast-inspired dessert which you will end your meal with. It’s incredible how charcoal-grilled toast can be recreated with teh tarik-flavoured meringue, and how delicious it is with house-made kaya and a cold slab of Bordier butter sandwiched within.

What else is there to know?

Lunch starts at S$208 a person while dinner begins at S$298. Allow yourself 2.5 to three hours in order to fully enjoy the experience.

Labyrinth
8 Raffles Avenue,
02-23, Esplanade Mall,
Singapore 039802

Featured photo by Restaurant Labyrinth