ZAFFERANO ITALIAN RESTAURANT & LOUNGE
Level 43, Ocean Financial Centre, S(049315) T 6509-1488
On a clear, sunny day, Zafferano Italian Restaurant & Lounge is a great place to have lunch. The restaurant sits like a jewel above the Central Business District, flooded with natural light.
Head chef Marco Guccio’s menu is packed with crowd-pleasing favourites. Diners can create their own free-wheeling tasting menu from the a la carte selection too.
A pretty antipasto is the red mazara prawns, served raw and whole; they are given an acidic lift from the sous-vide and marinated pineapple and blood orange coulis. The other antipasto that we can’t say “no” to is burrata, or burratina cheese. Here, the burratina is allowed to be itself, simply accompanied by heirloom tomatoes, basil and Sicilian extra virgin olive oil.
Should you decide to share a primo of pasta as we did, the service staff will offer to pre-apportion the dish, which seldom gets offered elsewhere at other Italian restaurants but is a definite plus point. The linguine with spanner crab in tomato sauce and sun-dried Sardinian grey mullet roe is a popular dish.
In the mood for a simple main course, we order the Sardinian octopus, which turns up as a huge tentacle curled on the plate, accompanied by roast vegetables. The salmoriglio dressing is a classic southern Italian sauce usually served with fish and other seafood; here, it serves as the perfect companion to the octopus.
Instead of the usual tiramisu or a cliched molten chocolate lava cake, we felt it to be the perfect day to order the cold strawberry soup, with homemade yogurt ice cream and 12-year aged balsamic – it is perfectly balanced in terms of sweet-sour notes.