The Ritual of Reunion: An Introduction
Chinese New Year dining in Singapore transcends mere sustenance. It is theater, symbolism, and ancestral memory plated with precision. As the Year of the Horse approaches, the city’s most distinguished Chinese restaurants have unveiled menus that function as edible manifestos of prosperity, longevity, and familial devotion. Over the course of the festive season, I embarked on a gastronomic pilgrimage through several establishments, seeking to understand how tradition and innovation converge on the plates that anchor our most meaningful gatherings.
Summer Pavilion: The Weight of Nine Stars
The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore
Price Range: $$$
Festive Period: February 2 – March 3, 2026
The Setting
Approaching Summer Pavilion feels ceremonial. The dining room, bathed in natural light during lunch service, maintains the hushed reverence of a space that understands its responsibility. Hand-painted tableware—each piece a minor work of art—sets the stage. This is the restaurant’s ninth consecutive year holding a Michelin star, and that continuity of excellence permeates every detail.
The Yu Sheng: A Study in Restraint
The king scallop and salmon roe yu sheng arrives as a chromatic wheel of julienned vegetables, each element positioned with architectural precision. Unlike the exuberant, sometimes chaotic yu sheng of more casual establishments, this rendition speaks in a lower register. The scallops, sweet and yielding, provide textural counterpoint to the pop of ikura. The dressing—balanced between sweet, tart, and subtly funky—doesn’t overpower but orchestrates.
The tossing ritual, led by our server with practiced enthusiasm, transforms the composition. What was ordered becomes deliberate chaos, vegetables cascading, sauces mingling. The symbolism is transparent: from structure to abundance, from individual components to collective fortune.
Chef Cheung Siu Kong’s Signatures
Steamed Dong Xing Grouper with Minced Pork, Preserved Vegetables and Black Bean
This dish encapsulates Southern Chinese cooking philosophy: respect the ingredient’s inherent quality, then amplify it through judicious seasoning. The grouper—Dong Xing, a premium variety prized for its delicate, almost sweet flesh—arrives glistening under a light soy-based sauce. The minced pork provides richness without heaviness, while the preserved vegetables (choy poh) and fermented black beans introduce a funky, umami-laden complexity.
The steaming technique is impeccable. The fish yields to chopsticks with minimal resistance, its flesh remaining just opaque, never dry. This is not cooking that announces itself; it whispers, requiring the diner to lean in and pay attention.
Double-Boiled Superior Bird’s Nest with Crab Roe, Crab Meat and Black Caviar
Ostentation meets delicacy in this luxurious soup. The bird’s nest—those protein strands harvested from swiftlet nests—provides textural intrigue rather than pronounced flavor. It’s the canvas. The superior stock, double-boiled for hours, carries the essence of chicken, pork, and aromatics reduced to their platonic ideal.
Crab roe adds brininess and subtle sweetness, while crab meat introduces delicate oceanic notes. The black caviar, applied with restraint, provides saline punctuation. Each spoonful is an exercise in textural complexity: the slight resistance of the bird’s nest, the yielding softness of crab meat, the pop of caviar.
This is indulgence that requires contemplation rather than volume.
The Pen Cai: Architecture of Abundance
Chef Cheung’s pen cai—that towering symbol of prosperity featuring ten meticulously layered ingredients—arrives in a clay pot, still bubbling. This is festival food engineered for extended families, designed to be shared, excavated layer by layer like an archaeological dig of flavor.
From top to bottom: tender sea perch, plump Hokkaido scallops, reconstituted fish maw (prized for its collagen and texture), braised abalone, mushrooms, and root vegetables, all bathed in a masterful brown sauce enriched with oyster sauce, superior stock, and carefully calibrated sweetness.
The genius of pen cai lies in its thermal engineering. Ingredients requiring less cooking time sit atop those that benefit from extended braising. As the pot continues to simmer at the table, flavors migrate and mingle. The fish maw absorbs the rich sauce, becoming increasingly luxurious. The abalone, already tender from careful braising, yields its oceanic essence to the communal pot.
This is not a dish for solo dining. It demands conversation, negotiation, and the gentle politics of ensuring elderly relatives receive the choicest morsels.
Verdict: Summer Pavilion delivers precision Cantonese cooking that honors tradition while maintaining exacting contemporary standards. The experience is less about fireworks and more about watching a master calligrapher execute each stroke with unhurried confidence. For those seeking refinement over spectacle, this is the definitive choice.
Black Pearl: Youth, Ambition, and Sweeping Views
Odeon 333, Downtown Singapore
Price Range: $$$
Festive Period: February 1 – March 3, 2026
The Vision
Executive chef Dee Chan, conspicuously young for a position of such responsibility, brings Hong Kong sensibilities to Singapore’s rooftop dining scene. The space itself—perched atop Odeon 333 with panoramic city views—establishes immediate contrast with the more traditional, inward-focused dining rooms of heritage hotels.
This is contemporary Chinese fine dining unshackled from reverence for reverence’s sake. The influences are eclectic: Cantonese foundations, regional sub-cuisine flourishes, and the ceremonial grandeur of Qing imperial banquets reinterpreted through a modern lens.
The Iridescent Prosperity Yu Sheng
Where Summer Pavilion’s yu sheng whispered, Black Pearl’s announces itself. The composition is fruit-forward, featuring baby abalone, smoked salmon, and a housemade yuzu-sesame dressing that introduces citrus brightness alongside the expected nutty depth.
The iridescence referenced in the name comes from the presentation—ingredients catching light, creating visual dynamism that photographs exceptionally well. This is Instagram-era yu sheng, unafraid of its own beauty.
The yuzu in the dressing is the revelation. It lifts the entire composition, preventing the richness of smoked salmon and abalone from becoming cloying. Each bite oscillates between sweet, tart, oceanic, and nutty—a more complex flavor profile than traditional renditions.
Black Truffle Crispy Roasted Duck
Chef Chan’s duck employs traditional Beijing techniques—air pumping to separate skin from flesh, maltose coating, extended drying—but introduces European luxury in the form of shaved black truffle.
The duck arrives tableside for ceremonial carving, skin crackling audibly under the knife. The meat remains moist, almost succulent, evidence of careful temperature control. But it’s the skin that commands attention: shatteringly crisp, lacquered to mahogany brilliance, carrying subtle five-spice aromatics.
The black truffle application could read as gilding the lily, but Chan demonstrates restraint. The earthy, almost garlicky notes of truffle complement rather than overwhelm the duck’s own richness. Served with traditional thin pancakes, julienned cucumber and scallion, and hoisin sauce, the dish becomes an exercise in textural and temperature contrasts: crisp skin against yielding meat, warm duck against cool vegetables, funky truffle against sweet hoisin.
This is fusion that understands both parents deeply enough to create a coherent hybrid.
The Prosperity 10-Head Abalone Treasure Pot
The “10-head” designation refers to abalones sized such that ten comprise one catty (approximately 600 grams)—a measure of significant luxury. This treasure pot layers more than ten premium ingredients in a composition that rivals Summer Pavilion’s pen cai in ambition while diverging in execution.
The abalone itself, braised for hours until yielding yet still maintaining structural integrity, exemplifies patient cooking. Each piece has absorbed the braising liquid—a complex reduction of chicken stock, oyster sauce, and aromatics—becoming a concentrated delivery mechanism for umami.
Surrounding the abalone: sea cucumber (prized for its texture and perceived health benefits), fish maw, dried oysters, shiitake mushrooms, sea moss, dried scallops, roasted pork belly, and seasonal vegetables. This is not minimalist cooking. This is abundance as both aesthetic and philosophy.
What elevates the dish beyond mere ingredient stacking is the sauce management. Despite the long cooking time and multiple components, the sauce remains balanced—rich but not heavy, savory but not salty, complex but not muddled. Each ingredient contributes to the whole while maintaining its identity.
Braised Boston Lobster Rice
Chef Chan’s signature lobster rice arrives in individual clay pots, still crackling from the heat. The rice itself—cooked in a masterful stock enriched with lobster shells and aromatics—carries deep oceanic flavor throughout.
Chunks of fresh Boston lobster, briefly wok-fried to concentrate sweetness, sit atop the rice, their natural juices mingling with the already flavorful grains. The Maillard reaction has occurred at the bottom of the clay pot, creating those coveted crispy rice bits (socarrat, as Spanish paella enthusiasts would recognize) that provide textural intrigue.
This is comfort food engineered to luxury specifications—the kind of dish that inspires contented silence around the table.
Verdict: Black Pearl represents the new guard of Chinese fine dining in Singapore—confident, visually sophisticated, willing to import techniques and ingredients from outside the traditional canon while maintaining deep respect for Cantonese foundations. The rooftop setting and contemporary aesthetic appeal to a younger demographic seeking tradition with a modern voice.
Cherry Garden by Chef Fei: Precision and Restraint
Mandarin Oriental, Marina Square
Price Range: $$$
Festive Period: February 2 – March 3, 2026
The Philosophy
Cherry Garden operates in the territory between tradition and subtle innovation, never straying so far from classic Cantonese techniques as to alienate purists, yet introducing enough contemporary flourishes to maintain relevance.
The Chaoshan-Style Lobster Yu Sheng
This yu sheng demonstrates regional specificity. Chaoshan (the region surrounding Shantou in Guangdong province) possesses its own culinary dialect, and this dish speaks it fluently.
The composition features julienned vegetables, crispy taro (providing textural contrast and nutty sweetness), Wujiang salted vegetables (introducing funky, fermented complexity), and radish. The housemade sauce combines sour plum, lemon, and chili—a more complex flavor architecture than standard yu sheng dressings.
The Australian lobster, sweet and substantial, anchors the composition. The crunch of peanuts and pumpkin seeds adds another textural dimension. This is yu sheng as a study in contrasts: sweet against salty, crispy against tender, bright acidity against rich seafood.
The Chaoshan influence manifests in the balanced sourness and the emphasis on preserved vegetables—elements less pronounced in standard Cantonese renditions.
Charcoal-Grilled New Zealand Live Abalone
This dish represents the apex of technique applied to premium ingredients. The abalone—live specimens from New Zealand waters, prized for their size and flavor—undergo slow grilling over charcoal, a method requiring vigilance and experience.
The charcoal imparts subtle smoke without overwhelming the abalone’s inherent sweetness. The slow cooking breaks down connective tissue, transforming what could be rubbery protein into yielding, almost buttery texture. Each piece carries char marks like a signature, evidence of direct flame contact.
The accompanying sauce—a reduction of abalone stock, oyster sauce, and aromatics—amplifies rather than masks. This is cooking that understands when to step back, when to let ingredient quality speak.
The abalone embodies prosperity and abundance in Chinese culinary symbolism, and this preparation honors that symbolism through sheer quality.
Geoduck Clam Soup
The geoduck (pronounced “gooey-duck”), that improbably large Pacific clam, provides both visual drama and textural intrigue. The soup itself—a clear broth achieved through careful skimming and gentle heat—carries the essence of chicken, pork, and the geoduck itself.
The clam, briefly blanched and sliced, maintains a distinctive snap—neither tough nor completely yielding. This textural quality, prize in Cantonese cuisine, demonstrates respect for the ingredient’s natural properties.
The broth requires no embellishment. It is pure flavor, reduced and refined, seasoned with restraint. This is soup as meditation, requiring the diner to slow down and pay attention.
Sautéed Diced Wagyu Beef with Sichuan Peppercorn and Chili
Here, Chef Fei ventures beyond purely Cantonese territory, incorporating Sichuan’s signature ma la (numbing and spicy) flavor profile. The Wagyu beef, diced and quickly sautéed to maintain tenderness, provides luxurious richness.
The Sichuan peppercorns introduce their characteristic tingling numbness—not overwhelming but present enough to create that distinctive sensation. Fresh chilies add heat without brutality. The wok hei (the breath of the wok, that elusive quality achieved through high-heat stir-frying) permeates each piece.
This is regional Chinese cooking that acknowledges China’s vast culinary landscape while maintaining the technical precision expected from a hotel restaurant of this caliber.
Double-Boiled Bird’s Nest with Yuzu Honey
The meal concludes with this delicate dessert, a study in subtlety and refinement. The bird’s nest, double-boiled in rock sugar syrup, provides gentle sweetness and that distinctive texture.
The yuzu honey addition represents contemporary innovation—introducing citrus brightness and floral notes that lighten what could be an overly sweet conclusion. The yuzu’s tartness cuts through the richness, providing palate cleansing while maintaining the sense of luxury.
This is not a dessert that announces itself. It requires appreciation for nuance, for texture over overwhelming flavor, for the aesthetic of delicacy.
Verdict: Cherry Garden by Chef Fei delivers sophisticated Cantonese cooking with subtle contemporary touches and occasional regional flourishes. The experience emphasizes precision, quality ingredients, and a refusal to over-manipulate. For diners seeking elegance without ostentation, this represents an excellent choice.
Comparative Analysis: Navigating Your Choice
For Michelin-Starred Tradition
Summer Pavilion delivers nine years of starred consistency, hand-painted tableware, and chef signatures that have achieved near-canonical status. The pen cai alone justifies the visit.
For Contemporary Vision with City Views
Black Pearl offers the dynamism of youth, rooftop panoramas, and Chef Dee Chan’s willingness to import techniques and ingredients while respecting Cantonese foundations. The black truffle duck is a statement piece.
For Refined Balance and Regional Nuance
Cherry Garden by Chef Fei provides Chaoshan-influenced compositions, exceptional charcoal technique on the abalone, and desserts that demonstrate restraint. The geoduck soup exemplifies purity of flavor.
The Common Thread
Across all three establishments, certain principles remain constant:
- Ingredient Quality: There are no shortcuts. Abalone is genuine, lobster is fresh, grouper is premium. This is the foundation upon which everything else builds.
- Technical Precision: Whether steaming, braising, roasting, or stir-frying, execution is consistent and controlled. Temperatures are calibrated, timing is exact.
- Symbolic Resonance: These are not merely meals but rituals. Yu sheng represents abundance, abalone signifies prosperity, bird’s nest embodies luxury and care. The food carries meaning beyond flavor.
- Generational Appeal: The menus acknowledge that Chinese New Year dining spans ages—from elderly grandparents for whom tradition is paramount to younger diners seeking contemporary relevance.
Final Reflections
Chinese New Year dining in Singapore’s premier restaurants represents a fascinating negotiation between preservation and evolution. These establishments understand that they are custodians of tradition while operating in a city-state that demands innovation and global sophistication.
The best experiences emerged when restaurants demonstrated deep technical mastery of classical Cantonese cooking while introducing contemporary flourishes that enhanced rather than obscured. Whether that innovation manifested as yuzu in bird’s nest, black truffle on roasted duck, or Sichuan influences in Wagyu beef, success depended on understanding the fundamentals completely before attempting variation.
For families planning reunion dinners, the choice depends less on objective quality (all three establishments deliver exceptional food) and more on aesthetic preference. Do you value Michelin-starred consistency and classical presentation? Summer Pavilion. Do you seek contemporary energy, dramatic views, and culinary ambition? Black Pearl. Do you appreciate refined balance, regional nuance, and subtle innovation? Cherry Garden.
Regardless of choice, these restaurants fulfill the essential promise of Chinese New Year dining: they create the stage upon which families enact the annual ritual of togetherness, symbolism, and hope for the year ahead. The food, however technically accomplished or luxuriously appointed, ultimately serves this deeper purpose.
And in that service, they all succeed magnificently.