After my recent trip to Seoul I was fortunate to be able to fly home via Singapore so I took the chance to check out the sister bar to one of my favourite Melbourne establishments, Der Raum, The Tippling Club.
The Tippling Club diverges from Der Raum in that it is also a high end eatery. The apparent realisation of a long held dream between Matthew Bax and his chef friend Ryan Clift, The Tippling Club (I’m feeling lazy so am just going to refer to is as TTC from now) positions itself at the upper end of Singapore’s restaurant scene. Specialising in small plates and degustation offerings, the menu offers both 5 and 10 course options with & without accompanying cocktails. According to their website the goal was to create “one big chef’s table, engrossing and drawing the customer into the kitchen and bar and to experience all the magic of the creative process”.
So it was with much anticipation that I arrived at TTC on a Friday night with a couple of friends. As you walk down the path to restaurant you pass the tippling terrace which gives the first hint of it’s relationship to Der Raum, the terrace is ordained with hanging bottles.
As you then enter the restaurant you are greeted with an impressive view of the kitchen through a large window as well as a fascinating collection of ingredients in bottles which add to the lab feel.
I will venture a little from the review here and give some background to the visit. Having realised I may have the opportunity to travel via Singapore, I had contacted a friend from Seattle who had recently moved back to Singapore and arranged to catch up and suggested the idea of visiting TTC. She was keen and had another of her old friends visiting from Hong Kong for the weekend, so we arranged a reservation through Josh from Der Raum for the 3 of us for Friday night. Curious as to what this interesting venue had to offer, my friend then took a small group to TTC a couple of weeks before our visit and had left a little less than impressed with the service. I had contacted Josh about this and he provided an email address to which I forwarded the tale of her experience prior to our arrival.
So back to our visit, when we arrived, we were running a little late, so apologised for our tardiness but as there was no record of our booking, this was not such an issue. Interestingly this was a similar experience to that which my friend had experienced a couple of weeks prior. This wasn’t an issue though as we were guided to some seats at the bar and were presented with our menus.
TTC has an interesting feel to it. The seating area overlooks a garden and is covered by a steel & canvas annex that extends from the old building. While we got the intent of the space, our group was left feeling that it had a bit of a temporary garden marquee feel to it.
But TTC is supposed to be all about the food and drink, so back to menu. TTC has 3 menus on offer, one for cocktails, the tasting menu and then an ala carte option. We started with the cocktail menu and decided to go with a Mb Apple Pie, A Clover Club & a Smokey old bastard. This unfortunately was the second instance where we found the service to be lacking. Within a couple of minutes of sitting down we were asked if we were ready to order, as we were still making our way through the menu, we asked for a couple of minutes. This then turned into what seemed like 15 minutes, so we flagged down one of the numerous staff and put in our drinks order.
Once our orders had been taken, we were then surprised by how rapidly they appeared. As we were seated at the bar, we were also rather disappointed by the fact that the drinks had been made out of site and were then presented to us with no explanation of the individual drinks nor confirmation that they were satisfactory.
At this point we hadn’t decided on dinner yet, so we asked for the food menu and were presented with the tasting menu. During our time at the bar we had seen a
number of very impressive small plates being ferried out to waiting patrons. From what we saw, TTC does not disappoint when it comes to presentation. Immaculately crafted with an obvious attention to detail, the reports from my friend’s previous visit were that the tastes match the appearance.
With none of us feeling like indulging in the full 5 or 10 course experience we then asked for the ala carte menu. Once again this was summarily presented to us with no further explanation nor enquiry as to whether we had any further questions.
By this stage we had been at TTC for close to an hour and had been rather underwhelmed by the service we had received so it was decided that we would relocate to another restaurant for dinner and continue our evening there.
With the cheque paid, we were waiting for the return of the card and the receipt when Ryan Clift came over to check on our experience and see how everything was. We briefly discussed our drinks and complemented him on the menu before we departed.
As we left, we set about discussing our experience. We were universal in our praise of our drinks, their presentation and the menu. The Smokey old bastard was indeed smokey, the house infused cigar bourbon presented in the tall jar adding to the experience. The ladies’ clover club & MB Apple pie where both thoroughly enjoyed. The MB apple pie tasting exactly like it’s namesake while the presentation in the cardboard box making it reminiscent of child’s juice box.
As you may have guessed from the overall tone though, we all left disappointed with the experience. When you head to a high end establishment, quality ingredients & excellent products are expected, as is exceptional service, and this is where we universally felt the experience was lacking. Be it the lack of introduction or explanation of the menu & the drinks, the mishandled reservations or the construction of the drinks on the other side of the bar, a commitment to looking after the customer was not felt.
For my friend who had been a few weeks prior, this was a repetition of the experience of her party. For their visit, reservations had been made and when they arrived, there was no record of the reservation, again though they were seated without issue. The server was informed that one of the party would need to be leaving for the airport in an hour so they would like all the dishes to be brought out together. The order itself was taken incorrectly and the dishes where then brought out separately, resulting in the member of the party who had to head to the airport not getting to sample any of the food offerings.
I was very much looking forward to my visit to TTC, but left disappointed. I have no issue paying top dollar for a quality experience. TTC has first rate ingredients, an innovative and interesting menu, with well made drinks & food, but it is all let down by a service experience that is more in keeping with a roadside take away than an establishment that expects customers to be paying $100 to $200+ (70 to 140 USD) per head.
I have no doubt that some people will get the service experience that is expected, and the various accolades that TTC has received would support that, but you would have thought that given the prior notice of our booking, the explanation on arrival that I was in Singapore primarily to visit the restaurant, and the prior notice of one of the party having had a less than stellar experience on her previous visit that at least some effort would have been made to ensure that we had a memorable experience. Sadly we did, but for all the wrong reasons.
*TTC has a policy of no photography, thus the lack of visual additions to this post. Images are available on their website for those who are interested.
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