Food Review: Salted & Hung At Purvis Street | A Zero Food Waste Dining Philosophy By Chef Owner Drew Nocente

Posted on December 27, 2021 by theRantingPanda in Food

The Place Located along Purvis Street, I checked out Salted & Hung recently, a contemporary gastronomic restaurant under the Unlisted Collection and led by Chef Owner Drew Nocente. The shophouse space of the restaurant is split into dining tables and bar seats which overlook the open kitchen. There is a noble philosophy behind Salted & Hung, which is Zero Food Waste Dining where the team endeavours to use every single part of the food product.

The Food The menu features ingredients sourced from farmers and producers practicing sustainable methods. There is no ala carte menu, only fixed course menu for lunch and dinner.

I had the Journey of Sustainability, a 6-course affair priced at S$168++ per diner. The meal started with a series of 4 snacks – Beetroot Leaf; Kangaroo Sausage Roll; Ebi with Seaweed Muffin; and Head Cheese. I love how distinct the colours and texture are for each snack. The delicate Beetroot Leaf is made of potato & polenta chip with dehydrated beetroot powder, yuzu kosho crème; the Kangaroo Sausage Roll is an interesting showcase of a meat rarely come across in Singapore, where the cured kangaroo and wagyu are rolled with brick pastry, garnished with chopped chives and served with ketchup.

The most luxurious looking snack, and also my favourite of the lot, is the Ebi with Seaweed Muffin topped with amaebi and Russian Sterlete Caviar; while the Head Cheese uses pig head meat coated with sour dough batter, and served with raw honey and celeric mustard.

Next up is the Drew’s Charcuterie of Duck, Pork and Beef. The meats are aged from weeks to months, and is a treat on its own. The 24-hour IPA Sour dough served with kelp butter and whipped lard and chilli oil is worth the carbs.

The first course proper is the Bafun Uni – Radish noodles with Snow Crab seasoned with housemade ponzu, fresh Uni, pickled radish and buttermilk emulsion. I love the use of radish to resemble the usual noodle, where the ponzu lends a refreshing zesty element to the dish. The icing on the cake is definitely the fresh flavour of the Uni for me!

I strongly recommend the supplementary dish, Caviar (S$48). This dish is chef’s take on fish and chips, where you get a box of cured kingfish with crème fraiche topped with Kaluga hybrid caviar served along with collagen chips and pickles. The cured kingfish with crème fraiche is amazing, where the kingfish is cured for 6 hours, diced and mixed with a lemon shallot confit.

Spread it on the chips and add the caviar to it, the whole flavour is simply delicious.

The next course is the Sweet Corn stracchino agnolotti with corn kimchi, puffed buckwheat, charcuterie broth and topped with Spanish truffles. You get bits of cheesy flavour and natural sweetness from the corn as I bite into the pasta dough, and the delicious broth is made with charcuterie trimmings.

One signature dish at Salted & Hung is the Aged Turbot, the epitome of Zero Food Waste Dining. Every part of the fish, from fin to innards, is fully utilised in the three elements of the dish – ‘Turbot’, ‘Turbot Tea Broth’ and ‘Turbot Liver Vin Jaune’ sauce.

Aged for 5 days, the turbot fillet is rolled and served in a flavourful sauce made from the Turbot liver and Vin Jaune. What the aging does is to enhance the flavour of the fish, and it really does evidently from what I tasted.

The tea broth is another interesting presentation here, made from the turbot bones which are hung and dried for 14 days, along with local herbs and flowers. The resulting taste of the dashi tea is intense, flavourful and it encapsulates the ideology of the restaurant perfectly.

The last savoury course is the Grass Fed Wagyu, a Tasmanian beef from Robbins Island with 24-hour BBQ Carrot and served with smoked carrot ketchup and infused beef sauce.

An interesting fact on the Tasmanian beef is that the cattle are grazed naturally and sustainably on lush pastures without supplements or hormones. I like how the bright orange hue from the carrot ketchup sauce contrasts with the medium-rare beef. There is a tinge of smokiness from the carrot sauce, while the beef is succulent and flavourful. That luscious, beef sauce is great as well, made from beef trimmings with red wine added to the stock.

For dessert, there is first the Sunchoke made up of dark chocolate cone, kumquat gel and sunchoke ice cream.

The final dessert is the El Toro Orchard, which is chef’s tribute to his family farm where he grew up in. It is a combination of ginger semi freddo, apple sorbet, Lacto-fermented apple and aloe vera and ice mint gel, finished with apple pie snow; served with apple kombucha and ginger beer. This dessert is light and refreshing, and is an ideal end after the series of heavy courses.

Last but not least, a Candy Cart of Petit Fours are served – Fairy bread (Brown butter financiers, freeze dried pistachio, yoghurt and raspberry), Milo (Housemade chocolate choux puff with milo cream), Golden yaytime bon-bon (Dark chocolate liquid caramel and salted caramel garnish), and Anzac biscuit (Salted caramel and smoked bacon anzac biscuit).

Rants No particular rants that come to mind.

Will I Return Again? It was a great meal I had at Salted & Hung and I am impressed by how different parts of the ingredients can be used to conceptualised some of the courses. Each course is consistently good, with my favourites being the Caviar, Beef and the Aged Turbot. This is an ideal restaurant for a date night, double date nights or for celebratory occasions.

This was an invited tasting, though all opinions expressed are our own.

Make your reservations instantly at Salted & Hung here.

TheRantingPanda says:
Taste bud: 4.5/5
Hole in the pocket: 4/5
Ambience: 4/5
Overall Experience: 4.5/5