Odette

Odette is the restaurant that made Singapore a destination for modern French cooking. Chef Julien Royer opened it on 2 November 2015 with Wee Teng Wen of the Lo & Behold Group, in the former Supreme Court wing of the National Gallery Singapore, which opened to the public the same month. A decade on, it holds three Michelin stars, retained in the 2026 Michelin Guide Singapore, and remains one of the most influential dining rooms in Asia.

The chef

Royer grew up in a farming family in the Cantal, in France’s Auvergne, and named the restaurant after his grandmother Odette, who taught him to cook. Before opening his own place he led the kitchen at Jaan, at Swissôtel The Stamford. That rural upbringing still shapes the cooking: Royer’s guiding idea is respect for produce, treating each ingredient with the care of a finished object, and expressing generosity through food rather than formality. The restaurant deliberately avoids the stiffness associated with fine dining.

The food

The menu is modern French with clear Asian influences, built on carefully sourced produce. Among the dishes most associated with Odette are the rosemary-smoked organic egg, a mushroom tea and a study of heirloom beetroot in several textures, plates that show the kitchen’s taste for precision and lightness. After a refurbishment that closed the restaurant from September 2025, Odette reopened on 10 December 2025 with a shorter prix fixe menu and a stated direction towards lighter cooking still, shaped by the chef’s years in Asia.

The room

The dining room, designed by Sacha Leong of London’s Universal Design Studio, works in white and soft pink, a restrained palette that suits the colonial architecture around it. Above the tables hangs A Theory of Everything, an installation by the Singaporean artist Dawn Ng made from photographs of ingredients printed on oak panels. With 38 seats and a private room for eight, it feels intimate rather than grand.

Why it matters

Odette’s rise was fast. It received two Michelin stars in the first Singapore guide in 2016 and three stars in the 2019 selection. In Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants it entered at No. 9 in 2017, reached No. 5 in 2018, was named No. 1 in 2019, kept first place in 2020 and ranked No. 2 in 2021. It also climbed to No. 18 in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019. OKYTO recommends it as the clearest expression of what French fine dining in Asia can be when it is rooted in produce and stripped of pomp.