The Experience
Singapore's most enduring fine dining institution opened in 1994 as the city-state's first independent fine dining restaurant. Thirty-two years and three Michelin stars later, Les Amis at Shaw Centre remains what it has always been: a room where serious French gastronomy is practised with the gravity it deserves, and where the dining ritual — the unhurried sequencing, the tableside preparations, the sommelier who reads the table before pouring — is protected against the drift toward informality that has claimed so many of its peers.
The kitchen is helmed by executive chef Sebastien Lepinoy, who trained for seventeen years under the late Joël Robuchon and brought that lineage's obsession with technical precision and ingredient purity to Orchard Road. His menus change with the seasons and the market, but certain signatures persist — the cold angel hair pasta with Kristal caviar, kombu, and black truffle remains one of Singapore's great dishes; a construction of extraordinary restraint that delivers more impact than most plates three times its complexity. Foie gras preparations and French regional classics appear in rotation. The cheese trolley arrives with approximately forty varieties in peak condition.
The wine cellar is legendary — some 2,500 labels, with particular depth in Burgundy and Bordeaux. The head sommelier's recommendations are among the most reliably excellent in Southeast Asia. For those engaged in serious business dining, the ability to order well from a cellar of this calibre is part of the evening's purpose.
Asia's 50 Best has ranked Les Amis consistently, including a highest-ever ranking of #28 in 2025. It is that rare thing: a restaurant that has held its position at the apex of a competitive dining city for over three decades without compromising either its standards or its identity.
Why it's Singapore's premier deal-closing table
Les Amis operates in a register that conveys gravitas without ostentation. The room at Shaw Centre — warm lighting, proper table spacing, staff who treat your guest as well as they treat you — eliminates the distractions that compromise productivity at flashier venues. The absence of a view, of theatrics, of any element competing for attention, is a feature rather than a deficit. Here, the food and the conversation share the stage equally. The wine list provides sufficient ammunition for both generosity and discernment. When a deal is closed over dinner at Les Amis, the implicit message is that the host values substance over spectacle.
The private dining room seats up to twelve and can be arranged for presentations. For client entertainment at the highest level in Singapore, it is the standard against which other tables are measured. See also our full Close a Deal guide and Impress Clients guide.
Signature dishes
The cold angel hair pasta with Kristal caviar and black truffle arrives as an amuse-bouche, more a statement of philosophy than a course — one of the most copied dishes in Singapore's fine dining scene, never bettered at the source. Seasonal highlights include a Brittany lobster preparation of rare delicacy, milk-fed veal in spring, and game birds in autumn. Desserts are led by pastry chef Cheryl Koh, crowned Asia's Best Pastry Chef by Asia's 50 Best in 2016 and still defining the ceiling of Singapore's patisserie.