JuneCoffee
A complete examination of flavour, texture, hue & atmosphere at Joo Chiat’s newest dining destination
An Afternoon Spent Well
June Coffee arrives as the younger sibling of September Coffee, carrying the same DNA of considered Western fare but pressing into bolder, more composed territory — croffles instead of plain toast, layered pistachio lattes instead of standard flat whites. The Joo Chiat address feels earned, slotted between the neighbourhood’s existing roster of discerning cafes.
On a Thursday afternoon — well past the peak lunch window — the cafe sat comfortably packed without feeling oppressive. Tables turn at a natural rhythm and the staff navigate both floor and menu with practiced confidence, offering unprompted recommendations that proved well-calibrated to their guests.
The menu’s greatest strength is coherence without predictability. Dishes lean on contrast — the tang of pickled onions against beef fat, the earthiness of three mushroom varieties against subtle truffle cream, the sweetness of ricotta honey against thick brioche. Sometimes this ambition outpaces execution; the pappardelle’s starchiness suggests the fresh pasta would benefit from either a longer cook or a lighter sauce to compensate.
For a date, a slow work-from-cafe afternoon, or a considered brunch with someone you want to impress: June Coffee earns its place in the East Coast rotation.
Four Dishes, Examined
The Showpiece
The most architecturally ambitious dish on the menu arrives as a deliberate study in contrast. The croffle — a croissant lamination pressed into a waffle grid — achieves the difficult twin virtues of exterior crispness and interior airiness, its honeycomb chambers creating pockets of light, buttery structure beneath a shatteringly thin caramelised shell.
The beef tenderloin is sliced generously, stacked in a loose mountain that retains heat well. The cut is chosen wisely: tender enough to yield with minimal resistance, firm enough to not collapse into the croffle’s surface. Demi-glace provides the fundamental savoury backbone, but the pickled onions are the true masterstroke — their bright acidity slicing through the fat of both meat and pastry, preventing the dish from collapsing under its own richness. Spicy mayo adds a quiet, building warmth that lingers past the last bite.
Verdict: The dish most worth returning for. Architecture and flavour in genuine alignment.
The Earthy Middle
The mushroom triumvirate — shiitake’s umami depth, king oyster’s firm chew, shimeiji’s delicate, clustered bite — provides a genuinely layered fungal character that fresh pappardelle is well suited to carry. The wide ribbons catch and hold the cream sauce in generous folds, and the truffle note has been wisely restrained to accent rather than overwhelm.
Where the dish stumbles is in the pasta itself. The fresh pappardelle carries a residual starchiness that clings to the palate — a doughy sensation suggesting either slight undercooking or insufficient resting before service. Compounding this, the cream sauce — though well-seasoned — trends rich without relief, and without the acidic counterpoint the beef croffle employs so effectively, the dish begins to feel cloying before the bowl is empty.
Verdict: Worth ordering for the mushrooms; the pasta needs refinement to match the quality of the other dishes.
For the Sweet-Leaning
June Coffee’s brioche is demonstrably exceptional — thick, cloud-soft slices with a faintly eggy, lactic richness that places them closer to enriched bread than standard toast. As a vehicle for the Honey Lemon Ricotta treatment, this quality is both an asset and a complication: the brioche already carries significant sweetness and fat, and the ricotta and honey layers compound both registers simultaneously.
The lemon component is present but subdued — it would benefit from a sharper, more assertive expression to cut through the cream. Most unexpectedly, a thread of spice runs through the dish that the menu does not telegraph, striking an odd note against the otherwise wholly sweet-dairy direction. The pecans add welcome textural punctuation — their bitterness and crunch a small mercy against the dish’s prevailing softness.
Verdict: Ideally suited to guests with a pronounced sweet tooth and an appreciation for dairy-forward profiles.
The Quiet Triumph
Often the most revealing test of a kitchen’s sensibility is its approach to a simple preparation. The House Potato Salad, offered almost apologetically as a sharing side, demonstrates a more nuanced understanding of flavour construction than its modest price and description suggest.
Baby potatoes are roasted to a stage where their skins tighten and char at the edges while their flesh remains yielding — producing the textural friction that boiled preparations always lack. Mayonnaise is applied with restraint, coating rather than drowning. Bacon strips contribute savoury, smoky register. The ajitama (marinated soft-boiled eggs), typically a ramen accompaniment, bring their soy-mirin depth into a Western context with surprising grace, the jammy yolk distributing through the dish like a secondary, richer sauce. Feta adds the necessary acid-salt counterpoint to complete the composition.
Verdict: Order this alongside the Beef Croffle. The combination of the two is the most coherent meal the menu offers.
Reading the Mouth
June Coffee’s kitchen understands texture as a compositional element, not an afterthought. Across the menu, contrast is deployed deliberately — though with varying degrees of success.
Laminated Shatter
The croffle achieves something technically demanding: the crisp shatter of a properly laminated croissant dough, transferred intact through the compression and heat of a waffle iron. Each bite gives an audible resistance before yielding to a soft, layered interior.
Tender Resistance
Tenderloin is a cut defined by its lack of connective tissue — it yields with almost no effort. June Coffee’s preparation preserves this quality while achieving a clean sear that adds a hairline of firmer exterior texture before the yielding interior takes over.
Tripartite Fungi
Shiitake presents as chewy and dense; king oyster maintains its distinctive fibrous, meaty grain; shimeiji clusters dissolve quickly into the sauce. Together, they create a textural conversation that compensates for the pasta’s uniform softness.
Starchy Cling
The pappardelle’s unresolved starchiness creates a persistent coating on the palate — a tactile quality that neither cream sauce nor mushrooms can fully resolve. This is the kitchen’s most visible technical shortcoming across the current menu.
Roasted Potato Skin
The baby potatoes exhibit the characteristic split-skin tension of well-roasted tubers — a papery, tightly contracted exterior that resists before releasing into fluffy, yielding flesh. A minor triumph of simple thermal technique.
Jammy Yolk Flow
The ajitama egg, when broken, releases a semi-set yolk that distributes through the potato salad like a secondary sauce — viscous, rich, and coating without being liquid. This is the technique’s intended outcome, and June Coffee executes it accurately.
Visual Composition
A dish’s visual palette is its first communication with the diner — before aroma, before flavour, before texture. June Coffee’s menu operates in a warm, amber-to-earth register, occasionally punctuated by the acid green of pickled matter or the pale ivory of dairy.
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Caramelised Crust
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Beef Tenderloin
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Truffle Pappardelle
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Mushroom Cluster
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French Toast
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Roasted Baby
Beef Tenderloin Croffle
A warm amber-and-rust palette; the pickled onions provide the sole cool-hued accent against an otherwise wholly warm composition. Photographically high contrast, food stylist-friendly.
Truffle Mushroom Pappardelle
A muted, autumnal palette of ochres and warm greys — visually cohesive if understated. The mushroom variety introduces subtle tonal shifts that prevent visual monotony.
Honey Lemon Ricotta French Toast
The lightest palette on the table — honeyed golds and cream whites with lemon yellow accents. The pecans provide the sole brown contrast in an otherwise high-key composition.
House Potato Salad
The most tonally complex of the four dishes — charred edges introduce near-black accents against ivory mayo, and the egg yolk contributes a vivid chrome yellow that anchors the composition.
Beef Tenderloin Croffle
A home approximation of June Coffee’s signature dish — adapted for domestic kitchens without a commercial waffle iron or professional pastry lamination setup.
- Store-bought all-butter croissant dough (or 2 large croissants, halved)1 sheet / 2 pieces
- Unsalted butter (for iron)1 tbsp
- Beef tenderloin, sliced 1cm thick against grain250g
- Beef stock, reduced to demi-glace consistency200ml
- Dry red wine60ml
- Unsalted butter2 tbsp
- Garlic cloves, smashed2
- Fresh thyme3 sprigs
- Neutral oil (for searing)1 tbsp
- Flaky salt & black pepperto season
- Red onion, thinly sliced1 medium
- White wine vinegar120ml
- Water120ml
- Caster sugar1 tbsp
- Kosher salt1 tsp
- Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie preferred)3 tbsp
- Gochujang or sriracha1 tsp
- Lime juice½ tsp
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Quick Pickle
Bring vinegar, water, sugar and salt to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring to dissolve. Pour over thinly sliced red onions in a heatproof bowl or jar. Allow to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. Minimum 30 minutes; ideally made the night before. The onions will turn vivid magenta as the anthocyanins react with the acid.
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Demi-Glace Reduction
If using commercial beef stock (not demi-glace), reduce 500ml to approximately 150ml over medium heat. Add the wine for the final 5 minutes of reduction and allow alcohol to cook off. The sauce should coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when you run a finger across. Finish by whisking in 1 tbsp cold butter off heat for gloss and body. Season.
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Spicy Mayo
Combine mayonnaise, gochujang, and lime juice. Whisk until smooth. Taste and adjust heat with more gochujang if desired. Transfer to a squeeze bottle or small bowl for service. The lime brightens the fat of the mayo and tempers the heat of the chilli paste.
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Croffle
Preheat a waffle iron on medium-high. Butter the plates lightly. If using croissant dough, cut into portions sized to slightly underfill the iron — it will expand. If using pre-baked croissants, slice in half horizontally and press the cut-side down into the iron. Cook for 3–4 minutes until deep golden and the lamination layers have set into a crisp grid. Remove carefully; the croffle is best served immediately while the shatter is intact.
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Sear the Beef
Pat tenderloin slices completely dry — surface moisture is the enemy of caramelisation. Season generously on both sides. Heat a cast-iron or stainless pan over high heat until smoking. Add oil and sear slices for 60–90 seconds per side, working in batches to avoid crowding. Add butter, garlic, and thyme to the pan in the final 30 seconds and baste continuously. Remove and rest for 2 minutes minimum; tenderloin is unforgiving when over-rested in a closed environment, so tent loosely.
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Assemble
Place the croffle on a warm plate. Arrange seared beef slices in a generous, slightly unstructured mountain atop the croffle — height communicates abundance. Spoon warm demi-glace over the beef. Place a tumble of drained pickled onions over the top. Apply spicy mayo in dots or a loose zigzag from a squeeze bottle. Serve the remaining demi-glace on the side in a small vessel. Finish with flaky salt and cracked black pepper.
Kitchen notes: The single most important technique in this recipe is the quick pickle. Made even 30 minutes in advance, the onions deliver the acidity that prevents the dish from becoming leaden. Without them, the beef and demi-glace close in on themselves. The croffle should be cooked last, as it loses its textural integrity within minutes of leaving the iron.
Beyond the Standard Latte
June Coffee’s drinks list functions as a parallel expression of the kitchen’s commitment to layered flavour. Each option introduces an ingredient — pistachio, kinako, black sesame — that doubles as both flavour note and textural element through the medium of cream and foam.
Iced Pistachio Latte
A thick stratum of pistachio cream rests atop the espresso and milk, providing both visual stratification and a long, nutty flavour release as the layers combine with each sip. The fattiness of pistachio paste integrates well with whole milk at ice temperature.
$9++ · HIGHLY RECOMMENDEDIced Kinako Matcha
Kinako — roasted soybean flour — brings a toasted, almost malty warmth that complements matcha’s vegetal bitterness without competing with it. The sea salt soy foam adds mineral salinity that rounds the sweetness and amplifies the soy’s umami register.
$8++ · RECOMMENDEDBlack Sesame Latte
The most visually dramatic offering — black sesame paste produces a deep charcoal-grey beverage that signals its flavour before the first sip. Rich, slightly bitter, with a pronounced nuttiness and the characteristic slight graininess of sesame. A polarising but memorable choice.
$8++ · POPULAR CHOICEThe Room as Ingredient
June Coffee’s interior is a considered exercise in the language of contemporary neighbourhood cafes, executed with enough care to avoid the homogeneity that often afflicts the category. Wooden furnishings — raw-grain, lightly finished — form the dominant material register, providing warmth without darkness. Natural light is handled well: the space neither overexposes its corners nor allows shadow to pool in ways that suggest neglect.
The dual indoor-outdoor configuration is intelligently managed. Indoor seats offer the intimacy necessary for conversation, while outdoor seating provides the sensory relief of an East Coast Road frontage — useful in the late afternoon when the street quietens to a pedestrian tempo and the light falls at an angle that flatters both faces and food photography.
The staff operate at the precise calibration most desirable in a cafe context: present without hovering, knowledgeable without performing, willing to recommend without steering the guest away from their instincts. This kind of service is harder to train than it appears.
The Considered Conclusion
June Coffee is a cafe that knows what it wants to be — and succeeds more often than it falls short. The Beef Tenderloin Croffle alone justifies the trip; it is among the more technically thoughtful single dishes in the East Coast cafe landscape. The drinks programme is creative without being gimmicky. The room is exactly right for its neighbourhood.
Order Without Hesitation
Beef Tenderloin Croffle ($25++) — the best expression of the kitchen’s technical ambitions. House Potato Salad ($10++) as its companion. Iced Pistachio Latte ($9++) as the beverage of record.
Order With Awareness
Truffle Mushroom Pappardelle ($19++) delivers on mushroom flavour but the pasta texture requires tolerance. Honey Lemon Ricotta French Toast ($17++) is excellent if sweet-dairy profiles are your preference.
Visit When
You want a considered, unhurried Tuesday-through-Sunday meal on the East Coast. For a first date, a catch-up that deserves better than a chain, or a long solo afternoon with a notebook and a black sesame latte.
The Single Note of Caution
Pricing runs premium for Singapore’s cafe category. A full meal for two with drinks will comfortably exceed $80++. The experience warrants it — but arrive with this expectation calibrated.