Summer Pavilion

Hotel Chinese restaurants come and go with the renovation cycle. This one has had the same man in the kitchen since 2003.

Summer Pavilion is where to take the dinner that has to go well: the parents you want to impress, the big birthday, the client lunch where everyone needs to hear each other. It is quiet, formal Cantonese cooking in a hotel dining room, and it costs what that sounds like. If you want noise, theatre or a bargain, this is the wrong lazy Susan.

The case for it is consistency. Chef Cheung Siu Kong joined the kitchen in 2003 and has run it since 2014. When the first Michelin Guide Singapore came out in 2016, the restaurant was given a star, and it says it has held one for nine consecutive years since. In a city where hotel restaurants are rebranded every few years, a kitchen that has barely changed hands is the selling point.

The room

A late-2015 overhaul by tonychi studio turned the third floor of The Ritz-Carlton Millenia into a glass pavilion styled on a Chinese garden. The private rooms are named after plants (Bamboo, Pine, Plum, Wisteria, Elm) plus a Garden Suite, the plates are hand-painted Ginori, and the staff wear tuxedo-style uniforms. It is formal without being stiff. Three generations can share a table here and nobody feels underdressed, provided the men have remembered long trousers.

What to order

Order the double-boiled sea whelk soup with fish maw and chicken, served in a whole coconut. It was on the special menu that marked the first star in 2016 and is still a signature a decade later, which in a kitchen this careful counts as a recommendation. Beyond that, the menu moves. This year it has included a deep-fried lobster roll with prawn paste and breaded vermicelli, pan-fried pumpkin with shredded yam, braised three-head Australian greenlip abalone and poached rice with Canadian lobster; earlier menus had a duck smoked over applewood for 40 minutes. The hotel’s own dining page leads with a photograph of dim sum, so lunch is the lighter way in.

The restaurant is also advertising a Barons de Rothschild Champagne and Opus One wine dinner on 26 October, with Cantonese dishes such as pan-fried lamb chop and minced beef and goose liver fried rice matched to the bottles. That is one for people who already know they want it.

How to do it well

Book, and ask for a private room if you are a group; the point of the place is a table where the conversation is audible. Dress properly: the hotel asks men for long trousers and covered shoes, and the dress code rules out shorts and slippers. Promenade MRT is the closest station. Let the kitchen lead on the rest. Nobody comes here to be surprised; they come because it will be right.

Good to know Level 3, The Ritz-Carlton Millenia, a short walk from Promenade MRT. Hours are in the facts box. The dress code asks men for long trousers and covered shoes, and women for a dress or a blouse with trousers or a skirt and dressy shoes; no shorts or slippers. Book through the restaurant’s SevenRooms page or call +65 6434 5286. Check set menus and prices on the official site.

Summer Pavilion | The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore, Level 3, 7 Raffles Avenue, Singapore 039799 | Nearest MRT: Promenade, Esplanade