I was recently in Singapore to attend Chanel’s cruise collection. It was a fabulous affair, but after a few days of subsisting on canapés and champagne (hey, I’m not complaining), I was craving something more substantial than a postage-stamp-size piece of smoked salmon on rye. I was also in serious need of some comfort food as I was bracing for a four-hour night flight to Hong Kong, a 10-hour layover there followed by a 15+-hour flight home to Toronto. Several people—including the woman who had recommended I try a Malay abdominal massage—suggested Pollen. (I figured this was a solid tip coming from someone who clearly had a heightened sense of the need to care for one’s stomach.) But as a seasonal allergy sufferer, I flinched when she first told me the name. “Do you mean ‘Poland’?” I clarified. “No, Pollen,” she replied. “As in the flower.”
Entrance to the Pollen restaurant in Singapore.
Pollen restaurant is located inside the Flower Dome.
I thought it was a curious name until I Googled the place and learned that it was located in the Flower Dome in the new Gardens by the Bay. The gardens, which span 250 acres of reclaimed land and reportedly cost SGD $1 billion, are a rare gem in a city whose bland skyline has a certain Ottawa-government vibe to it. (The notable exception being the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and its jaw-dropping infinity pool on the 57th floor.) For Pollen’s chef director, “Michelin” man Jason Atherton, the name is a metaphor for the growth of new ideas or “the birth of newly invented recipes and ways of cooking.” Atherton—who is a former protege of Gordon Ramsay— has a similar venture in London, called Pollen Street Social.
The Marina Bay Sands Hotel dominates the Singapore skyline.
The spectacular Marina Bay Sands’ infinity pool.
Foodie hype or divine dinner: Did the restaurant deliver? Read on…
