Holy orders
Fancy French countryfare in a former chapel
Chef Julien Royer could not have picked a more bucolic spot to open his latest Singapore restaurant Claudine than the 19th-century Ebenezer chapel in former military barracks Dempsey Hill’s leafy grounds. London interior designers Nice Projects’ tip-to-toe refurbishment involved stripping everything down to the original mosaic floor tiling, curlicued window grilles and the stone-cut holy water font. The studio dropped a white 15m-long cylindrical paper lantern by Santa & Cole from the rust-red ceiling and dressed the room with bespoke banquettes swathed in green velvet and sand-hued linen, and bistro chairs clad in vegetable-tanned leather. And while Royer’s first restaurant Odette (winner of a Wallpaper* Design Award in 2017 for best restaurant) is a local byword for refined contemporary French cuisine, Claudine sends out tarted-up Franco countryfare, such as an intensely flavoured Cévennes onion soup paired with Comté cheese toast, and a crisp vol-au-vent stuffed with a stew of cockscomb, morels and sweetbreads.