After 11 years at Hongkong Street, modern Spanish eatery FOC Restaurant has moved to its new home at Keong Saik Road.
The restaurant first opened in September 2014 and started off as a collaboration involving Michelin-star chef Nandu Jubany.
They had one aim — to recreate fine and authentic flavours from Barcelona in Singapore.
The new restaurant has a capacity of 54 seats, as well as a private dining room that can seat up to 16 guests.
It is also peppered with unique elements like its playful domino wall and custom-made lamps. There’s even a real motorbike hanging above the restaurant’s entrance!
Just three days before their final service at Hongkong Street, the team also received news that they had once again been recognised as a Michelin-Selected restaurant — a status they have retained since the Singapore Michelin Guide’s inaugural edition in 2016.
And no, the eatery’s name doesn’t stand for “free of charge”. It actually means “fire” in Catalan, the language spoken in Spain’s Catalonia region.
Want to know what’s on the menu before heading down? Here’s what I tried when I visited FOC Restaurant at their new space.
Tapas, paella and more
Before digging into the heavier menu items like the paella and mains, guests are welcome to order a few snacks to whet their appetites.
A must-try is the decadent Foie Gras Terrine & Ahrenka Caviar in Crispy Phyllo ($20 for two pieces).
Here, chilled, creamy foie gras is wedged between thin slivers of phyllo and topped with a generous amount of briny caviar. It was an extremely luxurious way to start the meal and I savoured every bite.
Another snack I sampled was the Smoked Cantabrico Anchovies on Charcoal Brioche ($11 for two pieces).
The saltiness of the anchovies were nicely balanced out with the charcoal brioche and these were glued together with a delicious salted caramel butter.
I also tried the ‘Patatas Bravas’ FOC Style ($6 for two pieces).
Typically, Patatas Bravas is a Spanish dish consisting of cubed fried white potatoes topped with a spicy brava sauce.
But at FOC Restaurant, the potatoes are instead thinly sliced and layered to form thick strips, before being finished off with dollops of aioli and brava sauce.
It’s a lot of effort for one snack but it paid off. The layers made the potato even more crisp and it paired beautifully with the garlicky aioli and tangy brava sauce.
After the snacks, I was served a variety of tapas, which for the uninitiated, are small, savoury Spanish dishes.
If you love preserved meats, get the Hand-cut Iberico Jamon ($32), which has been cured for 36 months. This usually comes served with Toasted Bread with Tomatoes, which can also be ordered as a snack ($6 for two pieces).
As the Iberico jamon is pretty salty on its own, the light and tangy Toasted Bread with Tomatoes helped balance this out.
I’m not a salad person, but if all my salads were like FOC Restaurant’s Momotaro Tomato Salad ($20), I may be a convert.
This features slices of tomatoes and an icy tomato sorbet dressed in chive oil and garnished with Spanish onions and hazelnuts.
I loved how the hazelnuts added a nutty touch to the sweet tomato elements and overall, the dish was a refreshing one that makes a good palate cleanser too.
And while I enjoyed the salad and Iberico tremendously, my number one tapas of the lot was the Charcoal-grilled Octopus ($34).
Octopus is one of my all-time favourite seafoods, so I am very particular about how it’s prepared and hate when it’s overcooked and rubbery.
I’m pleased to say that it’s not the case here at FOC Restaurant and the seafood was fork-tender and marinated well.
The dish was further enhanced with cabbage trinxat, pork jowl and paprika ajada sauce.
Moving on to mains, I sampled the Charcoal-grilled Iberico Pork Presa ($38).
The protein came served with a ras el hanout sauce and paired with an aubergine bombom that had been delicately placed atop a salty parmesan ‘sablee’.
This is one of the few pork cuts that can be served raw so diners who order this need not be concerned by the pinkness of the protein.
The meat had a beautiful marbling and was extremely tender. I also really enjoyed the rich, creamy aubergine bombom.
What is a Spanish restaurant without Paella? FOC Restaurant has two options on the menu — Wagyu Beef Oyster Blade & Mushrooms Paella ($38) and Seafood ‘Senyoret’ Paella ($42) — and I got to sample the seafood rendition.
I’ve had my fair share of paellas and I’m not kidding when I say this is one of the better ones I’ve ever had.
I love how the rice was cooked till charred — an Asian equivalent of this dish would be charcoal clay pot rice — so each bite was smoky with plenty of crunch.
But the real highlight was the seafood.
Most seafood in the paellas I’ve tried come overcooked, rubbery and unproperly seasoned.
Here at FOC Restaurant, you get just two kinds of seafood — Mediterranean Red Prawns and Hokkaido Scallops — that are extremely fresh and add a subtle sweetness to the dish.
Here’s a tip — don’t just eat the prawn flesh and skip the heads. The heads are where all the umami is at. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
And of course, to end off this hearty meal, I was served dessert — a Molten Chocolate & Hazelnut Gianduja Cake ($16).
This is an extremely sinful sweet treat and every chocolate lover’s dream because the cake was packed with a very generous amount of liquid chocolate that oozes out when you break into it.
To mellow out the richness of the chocolate, the dessert is served with a side of nutty, cold pistachio ice cream.
Apart from the a la carte offerings, FOC Restaurant also has an affordable three-course set lunch menu that costs $56++ per pax.
This is available from Tuesdays to Fridays from 12pm to 2pm and comes with a starter, main and dessert.
Final thoughts
Considering that the restaurant was founded by the renowned Chef Nandu Jubany, my expectations had been pretty high.
And I’m glad to say that the food here exceeded them.
It was clear that plenty of thought and effort had been put into the curation of the menu and there was not a single dish that left me disappointed.
If you plan on dining here, I suggest doing so in groups as the portion sizes are quite large and good for sharing.
Address: 32 Keong Saik Rd, Singapore 089139
Opening hours: Tuesdays to Thursdays, 12pm to 11.30pm, Fridays and Saturdays, 12pm to 12am, Sundays, 6pm to 11.30pm
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melissateo@asiaone.com
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