Cuisine: French
Address: 53 Armenian street
Singapore 179940
Nearest MRT station: City Hall (North-South line, East-West line) or Bras Basah (Circle line)
Contact: 6333 1982

Le Bistrot Du Sommelier was established with an aim of providing the guests with a traditional French approach but also an original twist, where people can gather for a warm, cosy experience, eating hearty food while drinking high quality wines from an outstanding wine list lovingly curated and developed in house by their awarded sommelier Maximilien Fedkiw.

For their Valentine’s Day menu, they came up with a special set menu, at $222 per couple. However, we did not like some of the dishes on the menu, so we did not go with it. Luckily, the restaurant allowed us to go with the ala carte menu on V day.

We started off with a glass of wine, one of the Bordeaux Grand Cru ($24 per glass) which was a little pricey. Taste wise I would give it a 3.8 out of 5 score on Vivino, as the taste was not as long lasting as expected.

For starters, we chose to have the cheese platter ($30). It has a mix of cheese such as goat cheese, compte, blue cheese, soumaintrain. The cheeses are arranged from lightest to strongest in taste, which should be eaten in that order. The platter was also decorated with mixed dried fruit and nuts, to go with the cheese. The warm, lightly toasted fruit bread in the middle was so nice and delicious.

For main course, I chose the duck confit ($36). It is served with a crispy duck leg confit, celeraic tart and chestnut mash. If you would like more carbs on the side, you can add on mashed potatoes / gratin of potatoes / french fries at an additional $12. The duck leg was succulent and easy to cut, and it was not so oily, probably because it was not soaked in oil in a tin can which is the usual way to prepare the duck confit in other restaurants.

My wife wanted to have the pan-seared hangar steak, but it was not available on that day. So she had the ribeye steak, done medium style and served with French fries by the side ($65). The steak was 300g and came in a huge portion. There was sauteed onions on the top and it was juicy, burst with flavours. There were some fats in the steak but still manageable as the both of us do not like to eat the fatty parts.

The staff was attentive to us and came to check in on our table, while explaining the dishes to us patiently. For the first seating, not all the tables were occupied, but around 8pm more diners started to stream in and by then, we were already done with our meal. We left to make way for the second batch of diners. While we wanted to try the desserts, but we were too full after that and did not try it. The restaurant has a nice ambience, but wines by the bottle/ glass were on the steep side. The style of cooking is very distinctly French, but it’s a pity that we did not try the rillettes or other cold cuts that the restaurant is famous for (as one of us does not like to eat such stuff).