Restaurant JAG’s La Balade du Végétal (The Vegetable Journey) is a culinary lesson in the versatility of vegetables from its provenance to the plate it is served on.
Since its inception in 2018, Restaurant JAG has consistently been called a contemporary establishment that reflects Singapore’s quickly developing role as the crossroads of cuisine. It takes the old-world charm of la grande cuisine française — a steadfast insistence on freshness, crisp white tablecloths, and balancing the elegance and edible — and propels it into the future. To entertain is to educate about an ingredient’s provenance (the wait staff are as eloquent as ever) and to feed is simply, to fill one’s stomach in a carefully calibrated manner.
With its spring menu titled La Balade du Végétal (The Vegetable Journey), Restaurant JAG’s chef and co-owner Jeremy Gillon has nailed the seasonal menu philosophy that has held sway for over four years. The menu is as simple as it is carefully prepared — start with a plant-based elixir shot, warm one’s appetite with a protein-filled plate, and end with a piece of cheese from a seasonal trolley. As it requires almost no tableside service, distractions are reduced based on how one likes to dine.
The spring-raddish with hysop pike, eggs and caviar at Restaurant JAG.
“I’m always very excited when spring arrives as it’s the beginning of a new cycle for the year that brings us a wonderful selection of vegetables. The most popular spring-time harvests are green pea, green asparagus, and other various peas we can find. There is the first growth of greens and flowers such as fiddlehead, fava, ail des ours (wild garlic), wild asparagus, and celtuce as well. Together, these vegetables make this season so special.”
“The recent pandemic and the rising cost posed a big challenge in the transportation and availability of the produce. However, it did not affect the way we built our menu. We have been striving to deliver the emotions that we want to express through the dishes for each seasonal menu since we opened in 2018. The biggest change was when my business partner and I decided to focus on one dinner menu to create a better experience for our guests.” says Gillon.
Banana absinth with bellpepper: robust as it is riveting.
A while back, a fellow editor asked if fine dining was dead in an almost despondent manner. My answer was brutal, “Who honestly has the time to eat it? It gorged itself to death” before realising that I was generalising what the term was in its most archaic form: pompousness that priorities itself over the purity of food. Dinner and more specifically, The Vegetable Journey at Restaurant JAG, however, rekindled my confidence about what fine dining holds for the future. A focus on the people including its own, families, and friends, and cooking for them simply and beautifully with a reference to the provenance of the ingredients used.
“We are very lucky that the guests who come are open-minded and keen to explore our discovery menu. Our curation process is different from a traditional French kitchen. We were taught to showcase the protein and see what garnishes would pair with it. At Restaurant JAG, the predominance goes to the vegetables, accentuated with the herbs from the Alps of Savoie, with protein rounding off the dish.”
“80% to 90% of our vegetables come from France but we are very keen to develop and build great partnerships with local farmers. We have some referrals of farmers in Vietnam, and there are a few regional farmers we are planning to work with for the next season. Strawberries are the perfect produce to represent summer in France and we are planning to use them from a farm in Malaysia as they grow tasty and quality Japanese strawberries all year round.”
The humble Jerusalem arthichoke becomes something quite fanciful at Restaurant JAG when paired with sariette lamb.
“My cooking is to showcase different textures, elements, and iterations of each vegetable, where each bite brings a different experience. Each dish showcases about six to ten different techniques depending on the expression and flavours we’d like to present. I don’t have a favourite; it really depends on what I want to achieve. If I must choose, it would be the papillote technique. It is very simple but brings so much flavour to each vegetable.”
Intimacy, ambitions, personality and casualness are perhaps the future of fine dining. A piece of reality however, is whatever creeping from the menu to the bill is measured in dollars and cents. Fine dining is absurdly expensive, no matter its level of formality here in Singapore. How then do we celebrate a backlog of birthdays, anniversaries, first dates, and everything we have missed out on over the past two years? Restaurant JAG has the answer: start small, serve dishes savoury or sweet and make sure the entire source is sustainable.
“In Singapore, for a small restaurant like us, we must work through a supplier to import the vegetables and produce. We’re always on a lookout for suppliers and the farmers they are working with to explore what they can import to Singapore. We’d usually look at their catalog and chat with them to find out which farmers and growers they represent. We also get references from friends within the industry as relatability and reliability are key to us. We work closely with leading suppliers such as Latour en Provence, Bruno Cayron, and the Chitose Agriculture Initiative. They have helped us to connect with farms we would like to work with. For local suppliers, I’d go to Woodlands where most farms are based to introduce myself. Step by step, we aim to build relationships with some of them and hope it’d allow us to work with them on different occasions.”
Swiss chard and achilee seabass: a fine pairing.
“Christophe Valaz’s herbs are non-negotiable for me. It’s a rare opportunity to have the access to these wonderful herbs with the expertise and support of Christophe. I’m not sure if I’m able to have them if he’d retire, so better to enjoy them now. The first time I met him, he was surprised that I saw him for a culinary purpose. He gave me a few different herbs to test in my kitchen and after a few weeks I invited him to try them, and he was surprised by the flavors and how the herbs could be used for food. Back then, his knowledge about herbs was more for medicinal purposes.”
“I’m very conscious and worried about the effect of our carbon footprint as 90% of our product is imported. To showcase the different seasonalities of the Northern Hemisphere here in Singapore, a lot of the products must be imported. We are really interested and motivated to develop partnerships with local suppliers, farmers, and producers. I truly believe that the best produce does not have to come from Europe or France. Good vegetable depends on the grower to make sure his product is beautiful and respectfully nurtured for quality and environment. Hence, we’ll love it one day if 50 to 60% of our products are sourced locally or within the region. And to build that, we need time. Though Restaurant JAG has opened for more than three years, we had to deal with the pandemic for the past two and a half years. We’ll need more time to work towards more sustainable sourcing.”
The simplicity of The Vegetable Journey at Restaurant JAG however, grabs one at an emotional level. It is the rediscovery of familiar flavours reminiscent of being a handsy curious child during summertime melded with the glamour of being an adult. The sheer thought of a dinner at Restaurant JAG shocks one into dressing a little spiffier. It is a space where intimacy can be cultivated (ask for the nook closest to the door) or where conviviality can be expanded (one just needs to call in advance), and unlike my unfortunate retort to a fellow editor, be open-minded. “The discovery of flavours and the element of surprise are part of the signature experience at Restaurant JAG. Our guests are constantly surprised at how much they enjoy certain vegetables that they otherwise dislike.” says Gillon. That is reason enough to make a booking today.
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