Chive Restaurant

Self-described as a “contemporary dining and bar”, Chive Restaurant is a remarkable restaurant that has arrived just in time for Christmas and is the kind of gift Kingston will gladly unwrap and revisit over and over again.

At the helm of Chive are Nanda Dukharan and Aston Lau, who are passionate about the food that they put out. Their relationship started based on their shared love for food, and some of their most memorable moments are anchored in food memories. This restaurant is the physical representation of their food journey on which they wish customers will come along. “We want guests to walk in with an open mind and appreciate our food — the flavours and textures,” said Dukharan. “We want people to say that the best thing they ever ate is on our menu.”

This restaurant is for true food lovers. The complexity and ingenuity of the dishes are aces and the offerings the principals and head chef Guiliano Hutchinson have created are far from basic. “The Food Awards have opened up restaurant goers to new experiences,” said Lau. Chive doesn’t want its patrons to just eat a meal; it wants them to have an experience.

The menu is divided into six sections — starters, salads, platters and dips, main dishes, pasta, and burgers and flatbreads. We have to mention that each section has a solid vegetarian or vegan option that is so good that meat lovers have no issues ordering it, like the delicious curried channa dish. Each day there’s a soup from Chef Hutchinson that is, in a word, ingenious. During our visit, the soup was a vegan vegetable chowder that utilised the flesh and seeds of jackfruit. The soup had a wonderful mouthfeel. The sweetness of the fruit, the earthiness of the vegetables, creaminess of the coconut milk and the nuttiness from the seeds made for a lovely dish.

Contemporary restaurant & bar located at Shop 15, Orchid Village Plaza, 20 Barbican Rd, Kgn 6 – with additional parking located next door at 22 Barbican Rd.