Waku Ghin

For this US $1000 meal, we provide two reviews both concluding that this meal was awful. Dimitri's: Absolutely NOT recommended. Very uncomfortable seating. Very cold room even after we complained and they offered a shawl. Ingredients came from far away and therefore must be expensive. Only 10 people for a single seating per evening with 2 chefs and much staff - adding to the expense. As soon as you sat down, they tried to upgrade you from the S$ 550 that you reserved to a premium ingredient menu at S$ 750. Very off-putting. The food was nice but with no WOW factor. Too many ingredients in a single dish: uni is great by itself, why do you need Oscietra caviar with it, and also some shrimp? By the way, the uni is not fresh - it is flown frozen from Hokkaido and then defrosted in Singapore. Why do we have to move to a different room for the dessert? That room was also very cold although we had been told it would be warmer there. Definitely not worth the price!

Audre: we had been looking forward to sampling Tetsuya's food since we missed his restaurant in Sydney in 2005. So, about 20 years later we decided to spring for the US$1000 meal and experience what people were raving about. This was not a meal by a great chef. This was a meal in which the price charged was being justified by adding fancy ingredients on top of fancy ingredients. No dish exalted the ingredients. Whatever happened to creating dishes to permit the flavors of the main ingredient to shine? Whatever happened to providing comfort for the guests: even little Audre had her knees up against the back of the counter (in order to be close enough to the counter to eat). Even Audre was freezing in the room. The chef on our side of the counter, Che Meing, was catty and fun but he had only been working 10 years. Maybe Chef Tetsuya is no longer cooking, but we would have been more impressed with a veteran chef. Instead of listing all of the dishes, this will highlight a few: the Avruga Flan was a take on chawan mushi. It was an okay substitute but we asked ourselves: "why substitute--just make a sublime chawan mushi?" The dish described as "purée of potato with soft poached egg, winter black truffle and Oscietra caviar" was ludicrous. Why have truffle and caviar? Oh, because the black truffle was tasteless! The pan-seared Korean Abalone, from Jeju no less, was tender and good but was too huge a piece for that stage of the menu. The dishes that followed were Canadian lobster and Japanese Wagyu beef. The dishes for dessert were not outstanding. We know how expensive Japanese strawberries are but the ones served were not tasty and were not red all the way through. The menu called for a "Paris Brest" as one of the desserts. We had to ask because we couldn't find it on our dessert plate. It was smaller than a thimble and was nothing special. The Shencha tea was tasteless. Oh man; we were so disappointed and we spent S$1306.80/US $997.56.
We think that the entire concept of the restaurant needs to be re-thought. If the only way to keep the chefs from melting is to have the guests freeze, then this arrangement of having the chefs cooking behind the counter where the guests eat must be changed. The sourcing of the ingredients should also undergo assessment. And the mounding of expensive ingredients on top of expensive ingredients should be eliminated. In addition, the reservation process was excruciatingly painful and annoying.

Was looking forward to this day at Waku Ghin - 2 Michelin Star establishment. From the moment you walk in to the very end, it was amazing except for the check...Lol. The guest services was excellent and exceptional! One of my guest phone battery was about to go kaput, they provided a charger to for him...Wow! The staff was very knowledgeable on the dishes and history behind it. We ere seated at Chef private table.

All the dishes was amazing and very rich....lots of caviar and truffles. This is not your traditional omakase, pricing for this seating was S$700++ per person (US$600). Total 12 dishes and 3 desserts. We had a bottle of clear unfiltered sake specially made for Chef Wakuda. After dinner, we moved into a more private room to finish up on dessert.
Overall it was a wonderful experience!

I was able to fortuitously find a seat in this temple of Japanese inspired cuisine in Singapore, but you should book weeks in advance if you want a seat. They only serve 20 customers at a time, in small 6 people dining rooms in front of a grill and your own chef.

Dinner is omakase only with a price tag of 400SGD plus tax, and of course you may wish to pair it with wines (a wine pairing where every dish comes with a recommended wine or sake costs additional 250SGD).

Service is elegant but also extremely personal. Since I was dining alone, my server made a point to strike conversation a couple of times, gently and always respectfully. I really appreciated the tone and the courtesy of all the servers.

The dinner starts with impressive raw seafood dishes, among which I certainly was amazed by their signature dish, a composition of sea urchin (uni), shrimp and caviar. One of the most delicious dishes I ever had, and I traveled extensively in Japan tasting some of the best kaiseki ryori in the country. Other gems followed: tagliolini with caviar and freshly grated truffle. Abalone gently grilled and then smoked in front of us with cherry blossoms (!). A bouillabaisse of lobster. Delight after delight, concluded by a delicious and delicate ochazuke.

Each dish was expertly described, along with suggestions to enjoy its flavor at the best.

After dinner, each party is moved to their own table, together with people from the other rooms, in another common dining space overlooking the marina and the famous Singapore skyline, not to mention the light and fountain show. Here delicious desserts are served (pre dessert, main and petit four, in a very customary sequence).

In summary, this was a masterpiece dining experience, flawless from start to finish in all its most minute details. The price tag is serious, but I am not regretting a single dollar at the end of this sumptuous dinner.

TLDR: bar service was great.

This review is for the bar service and not the 10 course meal. My wife and I came in the evening on a weekday and were promptly greeted and seated. Our server was knowledgeable about all the dishes and amply explained things. I ended up getting their pear fruit cocktail and a melon cocktail (underneath their Japanese fruit cocktail section) which were both delectable. We split the lobster spaghetti, Wagyu chim over rice and the fried chicken. The Wagyu was so wonderfully fatty you could feel you're gallbladder contract after eating it.

I was only here on vacation but next time I might plan ahead for the 10 course meal which looks incredible. Per my server it's usually a one or two weeks advance reservation but call in case there's openings the night of.

Omg one of the best dining experiences I've ever had. First to start... just walking into this place feels VIP... and the cocktails are phenomenal.

The muscat cocktail was my favorite to start with, and the Japanese peach.

We were seated in the bar area first and when our private room was ready, we went in. It's pretty amazing that everyone gets a chefs table seat and you get to watch majority of the food prepared in front of you.

It's an omakase that consists of fresh seafood and some meat. Dietary requests can be accommodated as well. But I myself don't have any so I just go with whatever the suggest.

Chef Tetsuya is mega famous and he is literally the god father of soooooo many world renowned talented chefs. I honestly don't even know if he knows how many of his offspring are very successful chefs with multiple restaurants under their belts in highly populated cities. I've been to many Tetsuya offspring restaurants, so although it was my first time eating at his restaurant and even though it was prepared by one of his chefs and not him, the dishes were embraced by my palette.

I left this restaurant soooo happy. Even though we came to celebrate my hubby's bday... I felt like it was mine. Every dish was beyond amazing.

I am a big fan of the abalone, the prawn and the Wagyu cooked to perfection as well as their signature dish... the sea urchin, baby Shrimp & Caviar. Just stunning. The seafood bouboulaise with bread was also excellent. I hope to come back sometime in this lifetime!

Waku Ghin is a phenomenal meal.

The Uni is obviously the stand out dish, but on reflection, every course is exquisite in its own fashion. The seared Amadai had a smokey crispness, the Wagyu was divine and deserts superb.

It ended up $600pp (incl 2 glasses of wine each.) This is a crazy expensive meal - and there are more affordable tasting menus elsewhere. However, if you love seafood, you can't miss this meal.

Never thought I would say this, but I found a downside to spontaneity. And that is: can't get reservations anywhere!

So I figured I'll just eat at the bar. It's a la carte at the bar. There's both counter and tables at the bar. Ordered the steak. It was okay. The sauce was too sweet, which really did not help bring out the flavor of the steak. Normally I love sweet sauce on anything, so I don't know what they did wrong with this sauce. Just didn't go.

Perhaps, the food is better not at the bar, but after this steak, I'm not dying to come back.

There is a reason why this place is ranked as one of the Top 50 restaurants in the world. A culinary experience not to be missed!

I guess our expectations were different and we didn't have the required refined tastes to enjoy the meal.

We were a party of 6, had the omakase ofc, some v expensive sake, and 6xS$20 of still water?!?

Overall i was dissapointed. Maybe I did not enjoy the subtleness of the 10 well-presented courses enough but honestly I was expecting to be wowed but in the end I came away with 3000 reasons why I could have eaten elsewhere for 5* food but much much better value.

The uni was decent and the a5 wagyu was ok but everything else was sub-par and honestly not worth the $400++ （don't forget gst + service) we paid per person. However our chef from Japan was a highlight in an otherwise mediocreally-supposed ta be-haute-gastronomic experience.

Like the new hublot ferrari engine watch. Or not.

O well. At least they had phone charger for my poor Android phone..

*also was expecting like otoro or some other sashimi :(( but o well i guess u can't choose in omakase.

Waku Ghin. Constantly one of frontrunners for 'Best Restaurant in Singapore', a meal there will set you back a cool $400++ per head, not counting water or wine. Even then, I'm going to say it's worth going at least once.

Each course is a myriad of flavours and textures, all meant to bring out the natural flavours of the ingredients in as dazzling a way as possible. The signature dish of marinated botan ebi, sea urchin, and oscietra caviar, is salty yet sweet, clean tasting yet rich. And amazingly, it wasn't even my favourite dish. Personally I felt that it was just a little too ostentatious, a little too opulent.

The charcoal grilled beef served with mustard was real delight, the beef was full-flavoured and the smoky flavour of the grill lingered in the most teasing of ways. Every time a dish came in a broth, we ended up drinking from the bowl, because apparently spoons weren't always part of the dining experience... but the amount of time and quality of ingredients that went into each of those nourishing liquids must have been significant, because they were all packed with flavour.

Dessert... was a little lacklustre. After the brilliance of the courses before it, the simple coconut mousse with mango was almost insipid by comparison, and a rather disappointing portion size at that.

One thing I must highlight however, is that the service really impressed. It wasn't as subtle or unobtrusive as I've experienced at other top-class restaurants, but they did manage one thing that sets them apart from any other dining experience I've had in Singapore. They noticed I was left-handed, and proceeded to place all the cutlery as a left-hander would use it (opposite of the normal place settings). I've never had that ever happen in Singapore (overseas yes), and that alone redeemed the seamless but average service we received for the rest of the evening.