A meal at Nouri is like a trip around the world. Chef Ivan Brehm hails from Brazil and takes those influences as well as a focus on local ingredients to create his take on what I’d describe as creative french food with a good dose of international influences. This seems to be the trend these days but which is done well at Nouri with Ivan’s own touches. A lot of pride is taken in using “locally” sourced produce especially a plethora of organic vegetables grown in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands. In fact, one of my favourite meals is Nouri’s vegetarian set lunch, with the organic vegetables dressed in a tumeric and coconut curry that is found typically in Brazil. This curry also shows up as one of the restaurants signature dishes in the restaurant’s omakase dinner tasting menus, served with an Afro-Brazilian fritter (pictured above). Another example of a locally inspired dish is his use of the Peranakan staple buah keluak in a sauce for a wagyu rump cap. But one of my favourites is Ivan’s king crab cheong fun. He doesn’t stray far from the traditional dish in this case and it fits in nicely with the overall lightness in taste of most the dishes at Nouri, and suits the local Singapore palate. If there were areas for improvement, it would have to be with dessert which I think needs a bit of a reboot and variance. Also I’ll never really enjoy the organic wines on the wine list.

Occasionally, Nouri hosts guest chefs which I think are worth watching out for. We had an excellent meal hosted by Ivan and Jonathan Tam, the head chef of Copenhagen’s Relae in December (pictured below). Nouri, located near the CBD on 72, Amoy St, is closed on Sundays and open for dinner on all other days with lunch served from Tuesday to Friday.  Nouri’s website.

A sample of dishes from Nouri’s dinner omakase

The affordable Teishoku lunch sets

Four hands – pictures from the dinner with guest chef Jonathan Tam