Grilled fillet of Newfoundland turbot.
Dining at d’Alti Gusti is a little different from other private dining enterprises since the team doesn’t accept different or mixed groups of diners.
Only one reservation per night is accepted and this can range from a minimum of six to 16 people; that’s akin to a full-service restaurant.
“We want to curate an intensely focused experience for those who are dining with us. Unlike a typical busy restaurant with people coming and going, eating different things at different times, we won’t compromise on that aspect.
They may serve a certain clientele, but even the most impeccable service won’t be the same as ours,” says chef Simon Phillips.
Chef Phillips’ Tiramisu.
Guests are presented with a formal dinner menu following in the traditional Italian progression of courses, with attention devoted to taste.
A Seasonal Menu is offered alongside the bespoke dining experience for groups who prefer to have customised menu. This changes about every six weeks in line with the changing seasons, special festivities and availability of seasonal ingredients.
“Our Seasonal Menus are also punctuated by special menus narrating stories through the food we serve. The most notable would be our Dante menu every November, which tells the story of Dante’s journey to the underworld in his books Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso,” he adds.
Carpaccio of charred polpo.
For our dinner, Phillips curated a seven-course menu, integrating some of his most sought-after specialities, a pasta course as his homage to International Pasta Day (Oct 25) and two items from his Dante Degustation line-up.
The night’s aperitivo was a garden-inspired composition, featuring delicate Carpaccio of charred Polpo (octopus). Dressed with monocultivar Tuscan olive oil, limoncello, roasted garlic emulsion, smoked paprika and herbs, this delicious curtain-raiser easily had us hooked from the first bite.
Sorrentino herbed crab cake. — Photos: ALICE YONG
Sharing a humorous anecdote on how The Ag Augustus Caesar antipasto freddo was created, Phillips says he was mortified when most of his regular guests chose Caesar Salad as their favourite Italian salad!
“The abomination of it all is that Caesar salad isn’t even Italian, but Mexican!”
Hailing his version as the next great Caesar, Phillips cleverly proffered all the requisite tastes and textures of a typical Caesar Salad through a lovely tiered creation, ingeniously crafted with panna cotta of Parmigiano-Reggiano, anchovy emulsion, crostino, crisped pecorino and salami, and shards of romaine lettuce.
Cacao-seared tenderloin of Berkshire pork.
The antipasto caldo of Sorrentino herbed crabcake, lightly fried in butter and served with caviar and limoncello aioli was exquisite. Coated in an impossibly thin crusty batter, we savoured every sweet chunk of the hand-extracted blue swimmer crab meat. The limoncello aioli’s mellow creaminess amplified the crab’s natural sweetness.
Deserving of a standing ovation was the grilled fillet of Newfoundland turbot. Covered between sheets of satin-smooth and ethereally light, hand-cut lasagna on a spinach vellutata, with a pour of gorgonzola-taleggio besciamella and a dusting of grated nutmeg, the entire ensemble was heavenly.
The Ag Augustus Caesar.
No less stellar was the Secondo of Caccio from The Dante Degustation, a cacao-seared tenderloin of Berkshire pork with foie gras pomegranate crema. Supremely tender, the flush-pink pork slices left us smitten with its clear sweetness enhanced by luscious foie gras cream.
Dolci highlighted chef Phillips’ tiramisu, a pick-me-upper of zabaglione of Marsala wine and Tia Maria folded into mascarpone cheese, layered with espresso-dipped savoiardi and Il Diavolo from The Dante Degustation, and Chambord-raspberry sorbet on chilli-chocolate soil, shards of dark chocolate and a pour of hot chocolate milk.
In my books, this was the most on-point tiramisu ever: from the booze-induced level to the moist coffee-laced sponge fingers – every element came together like a dream. And no chocoholics could ever pass up on this devilishly decadent dessert combining irresistibly hot (chilli) and cold (sorbet) elements in one go.
With the year-end festive celebrations round the corner, it will be an exhilarating culinary journey at d’Alti Gusti as Phillips promises a dining experience sans pareil.
