I can see myself coming down to the CBD on a weekend just to eat at &Sons, a casual Italian restaurant serving really good quality food at decent prices. While the weekday lunchtime menu is of particularly decent value, we were especially happy with the a la carte pasta and appetisers. Portions are a decent size so that we could share one appetiser among four of us – a great way to try more from the menu.
&Sons refer to themselves as a “bacaro” – a name normally linked to shabby chic Venetian wine bars. In other words, this is a great place to hang out, grab a glass of wine and some smaller plates to go with the wine. Hence, the menu is divided into small plates and large plates with the former, appetisers, pasta (with portions that come in two sizes), cold cuts and cheese, making up most of the choices. These are in any case, often my most favourite parts of any meal.
Both pastas were excellent – we had the Spaghetti in a sea urchin carbonara and the Tagliolini with crab and njuja.
From the menu’s seafood small plates section, we had the Crab, Pancetta & Sundried Tomato Crostone, which was much bigger than expected – the crab and pancetta is in a tomato sauce and came heaped over the bread.
We also had the Baccala (salted cod) cakes which was accompanied with a sea urchin sabayon sauce.
However, there is a also a decent selection of mains or large plates (as they say) including charcoal grilled beef (a sirloin tagliata), lamb and port ribs. There is also roast cod and sea bass as well as charcoal grilled prawns for those looking for surf rather than turf.
Since we were here for lunch, I decided to order a Cotoletta Milanese to try. It was just SGD9.00 for this pork chop. This is a weekday special catered to the office lunch crowd. There were also steaks and pasta on offer for around the same price. I thought it’s really good value. &Sons are also offering coffee specials at SGD2.00 for an espresso or black coffee and SGD3.00 for cappuccinos and lattes. This is remarkably good pricing for Singapore’s CBD area.
Our waiter recommended we try the Strawberry Jubilee Waffle (apparently impressive and good for sharing) for dessert but we deferred for something a bit more manageable. So we ended up with a Morello cherry trifle. My only gripe on this one is that the sponge at the bottom needed to soak in a bit more alcohol.
Since it is a wine bar, &Sons has a variety of drinks including wine by the glass and cocktails. You can also buy cheese and cold cuts – various salami, prosciutto, etc. from their onsite store.
&Sons is located off Cross St and China St in the China Court section of China Square Central. Parking is available at China Square Central itself.
Reservations recommended – contact &Sons, info on website: http://sons.com.sg