QUEST FOR PRODUCE

Sampling Santi at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, PETER COMPARELLI discovers that quality produce and traditional cooking methods are all you need for a fine meal

YOU WOULDN’T KNOW it by looking at him, but Santi Santamaria is a man of ramrod discipline.

The internationally acclaimed chef loves to eat and drink – that’s apparent – but his approach is one of precision and refinement. He calls his cuisine intuitive, but it’s an intuition deeply rooted in Catalan family-farmhouse tradition.

For all his creativity, Santamaria is decidedly no-nonsense about the three pillars of his cuisine: freshness, seasonal produce and a traditional cooking style. It’s this last pillar that led to a famous spat a couple of years ago with a rival Michelin-starred Catalan chef, molecular gastronomy guru Ferran Adrià of El Bulli, over the latter’s non-traditional approach.

That particular Spanish civil war seems to have blown over, and Santamaria has turned his focus back to seeking out fresh ingredients for his sophisticated combination of classical and contemporary Mediterranean cuisine. “The quest for produce is the basis of my cuisine, together with imagination and the simplicity of those who strive for perfection,” he proclaims.

Santamaria’s six restaurants in Spain boast seven Michelin stars, including three for his flagship, Can Fabes in Barcelona, and two for Santceloni in Madrid. He also has a restaurant in Dubai and now the recently opened Santi in Singapore, his first foray into East Asia. Santamaria is among seven celebrity chefs – the others are Mario Batali, Daniel Boulud, Wolfgang Puck, Justin Quek, Guy Savoy and Tetsuya Wakuda – setting up at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore’s distinctive new casino resort with its three hotel towers topped by the huge, surfboard-like Sands SkyPark.

For my wife and me, dinner at Santi is a four-hour culinary adventure through Santamaria’s traditional yet modern Mediterranean world. And that’s without venturing into the tapas bar for a drink before dinner, which would add another hour to the evening’s programme.

The decor, like the food, is understated and elegant. One enters Santi through a big, heavy wooden door before being ushered past the stylish tapas bar into the main dining room and its cool grey brick walls with handmade glass ornaments dangling rustically above an Australian wood floor. There are also private rooms and a wine cellar, offering seating for up to 80 people, as well as the tapas bar and lounge with seating for 20 to 30.

Besides being a master chef, it turns out that Santamaria is somewhat of a calligrapher. He designed the Santi logo, and his graffiti-styled custom artwork features on the restaurant’s glass walls.

As in all top-notch establishments, attention to detail is paramount, and it’s evident here in such things as the row of white orchids around the table and the tunes played at just the right volume. Santi has experimented with European and other music, but tonight it’s the dulcet stylings of two Canadian jazz singers: Diana Krall and Michael Bublé.

Our table overlooks the shopping mall and Marina Bay, though we can’t see the bay because outside lights that illuminate the building obscure our view. Let’s hope landlord and tenant can work out this little teething problem to everyone’s satisfaction.

Looking after us tonight are Santi’s daughter, Assistant General Manager Regina Santamaria, and Assistant Manager Juan Jose Alvarez, along with a well-drilled serving team adept at synchronised food presentation. Under Head Chef Daniel Chavez, who’s from Peru, the restaurant offers three set menus, ever changing depending on the produce available. We opt for the surprise menu, which costs about S$350 per person.

We start off with veggie chips and a lovely Catalonian romesco dipping sauce as Assistant Chef Sommelier Gianni Bartolomeo, an engaging Italian, recommends a full-bodied white wine from northern Spain, Belondrade y Lurton 2008, to accompany our meal.

The adventure begins with a plate of burrata cheese, osetra caviar and couscous. The buttery mozzarella mixed with cream is so fresh that we expect to see a buffalo grazing on the construction site next door.

Our next dish is another instant favourite: Australian abalone with Iberico lomo ham, Japanese fruit tomatoes and black olive sauce. Assistant Manager Alvarez introduces it as an example of “mar y montaña” cuisine, Santi’s more refined take on what we North Americans commonly call surf and turf. The taste is natural and the abalone is cut perfectly, substantial enough but not too thick and chewy.

There’s more delicious mar y montaña to come: Japanese Kurobuta pork and French Bouchot mussels. The small, creamy Bouchot mussels, the meat of each only as large as two pearls, are so delicate that their taste is overwhelmed by the pork, and the combination is wonderful. We marvel not only at the taste but also at the amount of work it must have taken to extract and clean these little gems. The highly marbled pork is a guilty pleasure if ever there was one.

The pork and mussels are an unexpected marriage made in heaven. Unlike some chefs, Santamaria doesn’t go out of his way to surprise. Nevertheless, sometimes he does. Assistant Manager Alvarez explains that in Santi’s world, if any two ingredients are of high quality, it’s okay to juxtapose their tastes. Cooking the paired elements separately, placing the food on the sauce – it’s all part of the discipline to “respect and preserve” the original ingredients.

Our degustation continues with porcini mushrooms and beef bone marrow covered in migas (made with fried bread crumbs) and accompanied by crustacean-rich coral sauce. Once introduced into the mouth, the bone marrow is so molten as to be broth-like.

Indeed, thus far there’s been no need to employ our knives, and that state of affairs continues with the next dish. The waiters ceremoniously lift the silver lids to reveal bowls with several varieties of organic mushrooms piled up inside. Wait a minute, is that it? Then mushroom soup is added to the mushrooms to make, well, even more mushroom soup. Though Chef Chavez looks for local produce and sometimes uses Malaysian mushrooms, tonight these tasty morsels are from Europe.

Making our way into the entrees, we dig into a sensational Australian spiny lobster with pumpkin puree, fava beans and coral sauce. Who knew that lobster could go so well with pumpkin sauce?

We can already feel our arteries hardening, and that’s before the sinfully unctuous foie gras that accompanies the pigeon, deboned but with its wings intact, along with spinach and a sauce of pigeon reduction. The bird is roasted French style, medium-rare and chewy, very unlike the well-incinerated pigeon that we’re used to in Asia.

At this point, we have to admit that we’re stuffed. So it’s time for the cheese tray, featuring the spectrum from buttery to blue, including 18-month-old manchego and creamy sweet Gorgonzola – all washed down with an excellent, dark amber, non-vintage Spanish sherry, Lustau East India Solera.

On cue, as if to make room for a bit more food, the palate-cleansing hibiscus granité with Thai mangoes arrives, permitting us to enjoy another refreshing light dessert, white cake with exquisitely contrasting citrus sorbet and saffron sauce.

And, finally, the petit fours, thoughtfully presented in a Santi-branded cardboard box for diners with no room left, to take away.

Besides the scrumptious lingering tastes, we are left with the awareness that tonight’s meal, as unadorned as it was, took a great deal of thought and preparation. Clearly, in living up to those Michelin stars, Santamaria’s team shares his passion for perfection.