I chose to celebrate my friend’s birthday at Three MICHELIN Starred “Les Amis” because I knew it would be a meal she’d love. True enough, her verdict was: “That’s one of my best meals of the year”.

Let’s recap it, shall we? 😊

Before the bread trolley rolled up to tempt us with its alluring array—there’s a new corn meal bread with caramel popcorn that had us asking for seconds after one bite, and a brand new unsalted French butter to gob on everything too—we got high on a few exquisite “finger food” creations by Executive Chef Sebastien Lepinoy and his team that showcased the best of Autumn.

It began with sardine rillette in a crispy tartlet, warm cheesy gourgère, and a paper-thin filo pastry filled with onions confit in bacon and Madeira, covered by the neatest arrangement of mini king oyster mushrooms.

A frothy cep mushroom veloute topped with matsutake mushroom followed, tagged along by a tiny smoked bacon croissant.

All this time, thanks to Raj the Sommelier, we were sipping on a lovely non-alcoholic beverage of grape juice.

Patrick, the resident caviar expert, let us try a new Kristal variety from a hybrid sturgeon by itself first before a big helping of it appeared on a picture-perfect ring of low-starch potatoes with creme fraiche, smoked salmon, capers and shiso flowers.

Our next course was a gigantic, meaty scallop with a buttery sauce made from fish bone stock, herbs and seaweed. It was so tasty I licked my plate clean.

Following that, Manoj showed us a huge uncut lobe of salt-baked and pan-seared foie gras before taking it back to have a piece of it plated with a veloute of lentils and smoked bacon.

Prepared simply with salt, pepper and olive oil, the wild cep mushrooms we indulged in for course number I-lost-count was picked from the village Chef Sebastian grew up in.

While my friend selected the roasted Challans duck breast with pear and jus gras for her main course, my choice was the black truffle and juniper berries-marinated Venison from the Black Forest in Germany. The latter was used to neutralise the gaminess. To complement, a silky burgundy sauce with veal feet was served. I was pleased we listened to Sommelier Raj because the non-alcoholic red “wine” was a pleasure paired with this.

There was no way we would not overindulge in Les Amis’ fabulous spread of cheeses. I learned from Manoj this season features mostly those made from cows and sheeps’ milk, and of course, he made up a wonderful platter for us.

We got to dig into some housemade ice-cream before desserts. Of the two seasonal flavours I chose - Fig and Chestnut with Rum, I preferred the latter but the former was enjoyable too.

As for our desserts, I was dumbstruck by how elegant and refined the Rum Baba dessert was. Rivaling it with its own brand of scrumptiousness was the Millefuille that had neat blobs of honey vanilla and chocolate cream piped in between flakiest pastry.