Teppanyaki is having a moment in Singapore, with new restaurants opening in the last few months – both casual and luxe https://www.straitstimes.com/life/food/hot-plates-teppanyaki-restaurants-fire-up-in-singapore
American brand Benihana, started in New York in 1964 by Rocky Aoki, wrestler and powerboat racer turned restaurateur, is the big name entering the Singapore market. His chefs, equal parts performers and cooks, prepare and serve food in front of customers. Their nifty knife work and pyrotechnics, which include flaming beef, a tower of onion rings with fire spewing from inside, and ending with fried rice corralled into a heart shape, are used to wow the diners. These sorts of theatrics have helped to make Benihana become the USA’s largest operator of teppanyaki restaurants. It presently owns 68 teppanyaki restaurants and 11 franchises in the Caribbean, USA, Central and South America. An investment firm, Angelo, Gordon & Co., who bought the brand in 2012 runs the company after Aoki’s demise in 2008 aged 69.
One of the oldest teppanyaki restaurants in Singapore, Shima at Goodwood Park Hotel, which opened in 1980 is still in business.
According to the Instagram account of Benihana, its Singapore restaurant at Millennia Walk is scheduled to open on the 1st of August. Shima at Goodwood Park Hotel, one of the oldest teppanyaki restaurants in Singapore that opened in 1980 is still in business. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Teppanyaki was a hot feature in foodcourts, with chefs setting food ablaze in front of customers. Casual and high-end Teppanyaki restaurants have since then and in between, opened and closed.
Teppanyaki restaurants have however opened in quick succession in 2003 – Kou Teppan last Monday, Miyoshi by Fat Cow in Sentosa in March, Kagayaki by Ishigaki Yoshida in June, while Express Teppan-yaki, a chain from Taiwan, opened its fifth outlet at Bugis Junction in June. These restaurants find ways to shine instead of with theatrics. They use luxe ingredients and what is called ‘affordable luxury’ by one restaurant.
Diners seated around the two 12-seat teppan counters at Great World are witness to plenty of action. There are two teppan cooktops at each station, the main one and a smaller one that rings around the counter right in front of its guests. Although much of the food is cooked at the main teppan, selected courses are cooked and presented right under the diner. Diners can also opt for the 44 seats around tables with food cooked on the teppan which is taken to them. Lunch priced at $ 58 ++ for 6 courses includes soup, appetisers, okonomiyaki, beef or garlic rice and dessert while main course choices are seasonal fish, prawn and fish combination, slow-cooked pork and a scallop. Additional courses include fish cooked in a pouch and seasonal Japanese vegetables with sea urchin sauce. Add-ons including Japanese oysters cooked on the teppan and foie gras chawanmushi could be ordered by guests. Ingredients are flown in weekly from Japan. The chefs here are more focused on showcasing their precision and mastery through the quality of the food served rather than overt stunts or martial arts, however.
Kagayaki by Ishigaki Yoshida opened on 6th June. It has a private dining room that seats six, and has 12 seats around a teppanyaki counter, serving only dinner with two seatings. The main course is a signature of Chef Yoshida’s -Ultimate Crispy Steak – in which the beef is cooked slowly and finished at a high temperature, or lobster with sea urchin sauce.
Diners at Miyoshi’s 9 seat teppan-kaiseki counter feast on soup, marbled Japanese beef in the appetisers, raw in a spring roll, in the main course and in the sukiyaki course, while their meal will include Hokkaido scallops, sea bream, uni and live abalone. Other seafood includes lobsters from Australia and unagi from Japan.
The restaurant which is part of food conglomerate Commonwealth Concepts’ portfolio, opened in Sentosa in March 2023. It is a three-in-one restaurant that serves casual food and ramen, with a teppan-kaiseki counter and an omakase sushi counter.
Chefs use the metal griddles in varied ways to likely cook scallops for example, and then smoked in straw in a clay vessel set on the cooktop before being served with wasabi, Russian caviar and shoyu.
Theatrics are not a selling point here, as the spotlight is placed on the service, food and ambience.
