Claudine

Odette is tweezers and hush. This is the chef's mum's stuffed cabbage, in a chapel.

Claudine is where to take a small group that likes to share, or a parent you owe a nice lunch: Julien Royer's French brasserie in a Dempsey chapel, named after his mother and cooking her stuffed cabbage. It is generous, rich food, built for passing plates rather than for tasting menus. The one thing to get right is the booking, because there are now two different experiences under one name and only one of them is in the chapel.

Odette's other half

Royer is best known for Odette, all hushed precision. Claudine, which opened on 16 November 2021, is the other side of him. He has described his mother as "the person that shaped me as an individual", and the brief he gave the restaurant was "conviviality, sharing, and generosity": French home cooking, scaled up for a table of friends.

The chapel

The building does a lot of the talking. Claudine sits in the former Ebenezer Chapel on Dempsey Hill, once part of a colonial military barracks. It has been a school for British military children and a place of worship, first for Roman Catholics and later for Presbyterians, before becoming a restaurant in 2007; White Rabbit was the previous tenant. The original stained glass and lancet windows remain. Inside, the open kitchen sits at one end and the bar at the other, with a backsplash made from the original stained-glass window, glass panels of pressed local grass by florist This Humid House, and a 15-metre cylindrical paper lantern overhead.

What to order

The dish with the best backstory is the chou farci, stuffed cabbage from his mother's recipe with dried prunes, to which Royer adds foie gras. Around it: vol-au-vent stuffed with veal sweetbreads, cockscomb and morels; a bouillabaisse built for three or four, which diners assemble themselves; and steak tartare mixed at the table. Finish with the soufflé-style crêpe flambéed tableside with Grand Marnier. This is rich cooking, so order fewer dishes than you think and share all of them (the cabbage alone is a commitment).

How to do it well

Book the Dining Room if you want the chapel and the classic French recipes; La Terrace is a glasshouse with French-inspired plates, and it is a different meal. The Dining Room serves dinner only on weekdays and adds lunch at weekends, and weekend lunch is the way to see the stained glass in daylight. Book through SevenRooms, and allow for the Dempsey shuffle from Napier MRT. It is, after all, a restaurant named after somebody's mum, so bring yours if you can.

Good to know 39C Harding Road; Napier MRT, then a short walk or bus. The Dining Room serves dinner on weekdays and lunch and dinner at weekends. Book via SevenRooms and confirm whether you are in the Dining Room or La Terrace.

Want more Dempsey dining? Here are our favourite tables on the hill.

Claudine | 39C Harding Road, Singapore 249541 | Nearest MRT: Napier (then a short walk or bus)