Bin 38’s bespoke dining experience

SINGAPORE — When your cuisine style is anchored by a distinct passion for innovation, as it is with Chef Ryan Clift’s inventive modern European cuisine at award-winning Tippling Club, a standalone research and development (R&D) kitchen makes plenty of sense.

“We needed a space that breathes creativity,” said Clift at the launch last week. Located on the second floor of the restaurant’s two-storey shophouse on Tanjong Pagar Road, the state-of-the-art facility shares the space with a minted R&D cocktail lounge and private dining room. Dubbed Bin 38 (in homage to Penfolds’ famed Bin series and the restaurant’s address), the combined space also represents a unique collaboration, a first for the iconic Australian winery in South-east Asia.

Dishes fresh out of the new R&D kitchen will include exclusive creations designed to go with some of Penfolds’ best pours, Clift added, with many eventually making their way to the main restaurant’s menu.

“We have about 22 new dishes that we have already developed up here. So for people who are coming back (for the exclusive menus), we can change dishes,” he explained. These will, after three months, move downstairs to form five-and 10-course menus — which allows just enough time for Clift and his team to come up with new dishes.

“For me, it’s no longer just about my food being something you can’t prepare at home. Now we have to think about cutlery you’ve never seen before, tableware that you can’t get anywhere else. By the time they go downstairs, each dish would have its own crockery and utensils developed ... everything to go with it,” Clift said.

This partnership also reflects a shared spirit of invention and experimentation. A unique Penfolds Cellar Reserve Traminer, for instance, available as part of the Penfolds eight-course menu (S$675), is linked to what Clift is doing at Bin 38, shared Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago.

“Our Cellar Reserve range is our experimental kitchen at the winery where we create wines that one day will get Bin numbers,” he said.

Clift added: “First and foremost, we want people to experience the Penfolds menu, but you can also book this space for the Tippling Club experience.”

The latter, available at a minimum spend of S$5,000 for two or 12 to dine, proffers food and cocktail or wine pairings, as well as new creations from the chef’s R&D kitchen.

Dining at Bin 38 is a bespoke experience that also showcases Clift’s collaborations with various artisans, from renowned utensil makers to glass and porcelain makers. The chef even has a range of kitchen (from S$510 to S$1,680) and steak knives (from S$430 to S$1,460), in either Bohler M390 or Damascus steel, which he helped design in a joint collaboration with Balinese master blacksmiths, Blades Of The Gods and German craftsmen Windmuhlenmesser. These knives are sold at the restaurant and via http://www.bladesofthegods.com.

“It’s not just about branding, but about creating a better (dining) experience,” Clift said. DON MENDOZA