Italian To Try

It’s not everyday you get to dine in a mansion on a hilltop. Surrounded by lush greenery atop Telok Blangah Hill, Alkaff Mansion exudes a European-styled ambiance that will have you feeling like royalty—with service standards to match. Our personal favorite is the housemade pappardelle with black pork ragout ($28). Handmade fresh daily, the pappardelle pasta is chewy and firm, with a smooth texture that lets the creamy sauce slide on easily. Marinated for seven days, the pork is soft and tender, sweetened with piquant flavors of red wine.

iO Italian Osteria offers great Italian food in an extremely casual chic setting. With an open kitchen, open ceiling with hipster hanging lights and unpretentious wooden furnishings, this new restaurant basks in natural light from large side windows, providing diners with the ultimate chill ambience. Food is prepared from scratch using fresh high quality ingredients. Find anything from fresh bread baked in-house, plates of Italian street food, pastas, anti-pastas, and mains - which include options like the grilled US rib-eye and codfish in aromatic fish broth. Get some wine to accompany that, and don't forget dessert. Some tiramisu, perhaps?

Heading the kitchen at OSO is Chef Diego Chiarini, formerly of world leading Italian restaurant Bice, Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo. A self-proclaimed perfectionist, Chef Diego believes that guests should only experience a dish with the correct ingredients. The handmade fettuccine with de-shelled baby lobster ($34) is such a creation. Al dente with just the right amount of turgidity to add bite, the handmade pasta is accompanied by sweet and succulent baby lobster meat with a full-bodied tomato sauce made of San Marzano tomatoes (the best Italian plum tomatoes) with a light sprinkle of basil.

One of the most romantic spots in the city, The Lighthouse boasts an epic view from the apex of The Fullerton Hotel, with a striking menu to match. Our personal pick, Gragano’s paccheri ($32) is a Naples-styled homemade dish of thick homemade alla matriciana (traditional Italian pasta sauce made of cured pork cheek, pecorino and tomato) with beef ragout braised for six hours that’s just meltingly tender, rounded up by ricotta cheese flakes. We loved how the tenacity of the pasta added bite to the dish.

‘OTTO’ is Italian for ‘eight’, and dining here will give you reason to believe this was meant to be the eighth wonder of the world. The food speaks for itself, and its no surprise with acclaimed Italian Chef Michele Pavanello (formerly of Il Lido) heading the culinary team. A special off-the-menu dish we also enjoyed was the Wagyu beef and pan-seared foie gras tagliatelle ($44). Grain-fed for 180 days, the Australian Wagyu is incredibly tender; the pan-seared foie gras so creamy and smooth that it melts in your mouth like butter. A very hearty dish, but delicious nonetheless.

Along the bustling streets of Club Street is a hidden gem in the form of Italian restaurant Cugini. Believing in good homemade food, this five-year-old trattoria takes pride in using quality ingredients imported from all over the world. For the best squid ink pasta in town, look no further. Expect a burst of flavors in your mouth with the squid ink fettuccine ($27.90) with seafood, green pea puree and mullet roe. Made with extra yolk, the fettuccine pasta is richer, with a touch of homemade bottarga sauce (a Mediterranean delicacy made of mullet roe) that gels everything together.

It’s not everyday you get to dine in a mansion on a hilltop. Surrounded by lush greenery atop Telok Blangah Hill, Alkaff Mansion exudes a European-styled ambiance that will have you feeling like royalty—with service standards to match. Our personal favorite is the housemade pappardelle with black pork ragout ($28). Handmade fresh daily, the pappardelle pasta is chewy and firm, with a smooth texture that lets the creamy sauce slide on easily. Marinated for seven days, the pork is soft and tender, sweetened with piquant flavors of red wine.

Showcasing traditional wood-fired oven pizza (no gas chambers, here) made with an inherited secret recipe of pizza dough from one of the oldest pizzarias back in Italy, you know they’re serious about its food. A classic pizza consisting of three ingredients: tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil, the margherita pizza ($19.90) uses fresh buffalo mozzarella flown in three times a week from the volcanic region of Campania—where the cheese in the best Neopolitan pizzas are from. One bite is all it takes to know we’ve found the pizzeria in town.