NEW RESTAURANT
Atypical | Room #15
#01-15 New Bahru
46 Kim Yam Road
Singapore 239351
Phone: 8616-1968
Open Tuesday to Thursday: 9.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. Fri & Sat: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
YOU know how people are defined by certain characteristics or talents? Courage. Endurance. Sociopathic tendencies. Things like that. Matteo Pertoldi, we are convinced, is defined by a gingerbread man.
You think it’s just a cookie, but it’s not. It’s a metaphysical allegory of one of the many insidious delusions that Christmas perpetuates: that those dirty mouth-watering gingerbread men and houses you get the urge to buy every year actually taste good. Panettone is another fallacy, but more on that later. Gingerbread? It’s cinnamon-scented, baked cardboard compost.
It’s not Pertoldi’s gingerbread men. They’re jolly, crunchy: crunchy, deeply scented with warm spices and half-coated in chocolate as a final act of rebellion. And they are a sign that whatever Pertoldi does in his tiny little restaurant/café at New Bahru, he puts his heart into it.
Our first encounter with Atipico (Italian for “atypical”) was at a catered Christmas high tea. There was the epiphanic cake. And there was Pertoldi fussing over his panettone as if preparing his firstborn offspring for their Primary One debut. The panettone is also good, by the way, and we’ve pretty much established that when it comes to pastries, this self-taught Italian architect turned baker/chef is the one to beat.
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While he has a takeaway outlet on the West Coast, the New Bahru outlet is Pertoldi’s first dine-in concept after a successful foray into private dining. It is open for breakfast and all lunch, until it closes at 6pm most days, but it’s open until 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays to give Pertoldi a chance to flex his “chefing” muscles even more.
Don’t expect anything of fine dining caliber, just bold food with style. His affinity for all things baked seems intuitive and flawless; it’s less so when there’s actual cooking involved. But that’s because he tends to go overboard with the sauces and spices. It’s not about flaws per se – he’s just trying to kill you with kindness.
You have to start with bread, a crackling crusty sourdough ($8) with a high moisture content – so it’s fluffy and airy inside. There’s a nice dollop of creamy yuzu butter with little bits of peel to prove it, and fruity olive oil to dip the pillowy wedges into.
Lobster pepper choux (S$22) are delicious canapés of choux puff with a gently crackling crust and cavities filled with creamy lobster salad. A dusting of black pepper on the surface of the puffs provides a pleasant but confident spicy bite, like a kick to the head without the concussion. You can polish this off pretty quickly.
The same with the potato strips (S$17). We thank the anal-retentive person in the kitchen who can calmly shave potatoes into 60 paper-thin slices without going berserk, pressing them together into bite-sized piles that are cooked until they’re crunchy to the bite, with a buttery finish. Black garlic paste is lightly smeared on top, and everything is covered in a blizzard of grated cheese.
Pertoldi insists we order the monkfish pasta (S$36), with his signature sauce that tastes like an entire family tree of datterini tomatoes gathered to achieve Guinness-record-level tomato sensation. The monkfish is supposed to be the star with little lumps of lobster impostor floating around, but this is just intense sauce with pasta as seasoning. Tomato-heads, rejoice. The rest, wade in with caution. This is good, but it can be too much.
While the Strawberry Salad (S$21) is only served at lunch, they can make it for you at dinnertime if you ask, and you should. It’s a big bowl of super-fresh cherry tomatoes cozying up with strawberries, creamy burrata and chunks of burnt candied orange for happy jolts of sweetness.
The mains is solid as Pertoldi somehow cooks like a famine is coming. Merluzzo (S$48) is a virtual block of snow cod marinated in very sweet white miso as if trying to compensate for Nobu’s shortcomings, and fried to a milky tenderness. It’s too sweet, but there’s puffed quinoa, edamame and broccolini to compensate.
A wagyu hanging tender (S$52) is sous vide, then grilled and tastes like a bulgogi steak with its sweet soy-sesame marinade. Eat it with a silky soft sweet and sour braised onion to temper the sweetness and smooth garlic mashed potatoes.
Dessert is of course a star attraction, and the rock ‘n’ roll (S$13) has a mix of gooey, chewy chocolate cremeux, hazelnuts, feuilletine and other elements that overload your sweet receptors, but in a good way.
Stronger on bread and dessert, but more than competent in the hot food department, everything evens out at Atipico. Pertoldi doesn’t cut corners, and when he devotes so much attention to just one cookie, he’s definitely doing something right.
Rating: 7
