THE bar at Waku Ghin, distinguished celebrity chef restaurant at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, is ushered into greater prominence with more contemporary cocktails and nibbles. Award-winning bartenders Kazuhiro Chii and Akihiro Eguchi run the show with dramatic finesse, incorporating Japanese mixology customs such as presenting the bottles of spirits used and shaking cocktails with a butterfly-like technique. Even ice is given minute attention, shaped into squares, diamonds, painstakingly-chiselled iceballs, or crushed, depending on the drink.
Classics on the cocktail menu include the martini, Moscow Mule, mojito and Gimlet (Gordon's Gin, lime juice and sugar syrup) while liberties are taken to create fashionable twists such as the stomach-warming Jamaican Martini made with Ron Zacapa rum and Lustau Px sweet sherry, and garnished with orange zest and a single baby truffle peach.
Waku Ghin's Chef Tetsuya Wakuda emphasises pure, clean flavours in the restaurant, extending this preference to cocktails and their accompanying nibbles. Caviar, oysters, cheese and meat platters start at S$35++ and work across the impressive 85-cocktail bar menu, which includes excellent whiskeys from Scotland, Japan, Canada and Ireland. The bar opens at 6pm daily. For enquiries, call (65) 6688 8507.
This story appeared in The Edge on Sept 10, 2012.
