More than just four walls and a door

The Lighthouse @ The Fullerton Hotel
1 Fullerton Square
Tel: +65 68778933

I don’t deny that when it comes down to it, the quality of the food is what distinguishes one restaurant from another in my mind. But I am increasingly convinced that the setting, or the space, is a key factor in distinguishing one dining experience from another. This is why, long after having forgotten what I ate there, I still remember the wonderful midday light shining through the spotless glass windows at the Blue Duck Tavern, or the soaring ceilings and grandeur of Eleven Madison Park. Singapore has its fair share of good restaurants that offer special dining experiences, if you know to find them.

I have always wondered how the market for fine dining in Singapore not only maintains its size, but keeps increasing from year to year. More glitzy new restaurants get added to a dining scene that has already a sizeable number of familiar favourites and old mainstays. Bear in mind that financial success is tremendously difficult for any restaurateur: since there is so much good and cheap hawker food around, there is no way the fine dining restaurant can compete on price. So setting, then, is a key differentiator.

The Lighthouse at the Fullerton Hotel opened in May of this year, replacing what used to be San Marco. The cuisine, though, remained the same – contemporary Italian. I was there recently for a business lunch, and as in telling people about my experience it was curious how much more recognition I got for saying ‘the old San Marco’. I had never been to San Marco, so I wondered how long it would take for The Lighthouse to step out of its shadow.

The Lighthouse is located at the top of the Fullerton Hotel, in what did indeed use to be a lighthouse. To me, the Fullerton Hotel is gorgeous: pre-war neoclassical that oozes grandeur, with Doric colonnades of stately grey granite – the kind of building that are a dime a dozen in London or Paris. But Singapore does not have the history of a London or Paris, so a building like that is hard to find.

There is a private elevator that takes you up to the Lighthouse – a nice touch, but the elevator is tiny and claustrophobic. Once you step out of it, though, you are greeted by a sprawling view of Marina Bay – which would be quite impressive except for the fact that most of it is currently taken up by construction of the new integrated resort.

My dining companions had arrived before me, so I did not have time to take in the space, but as I sat there through the meal it found me instead. The Lighthouse is a small space, but filled with lots of natural light, which lends it a certain charm and puts the diner at ease. The view, of course, is impressive. And for such a small space, the management at least had the good sense to spread out the tables enough so as not to give a cramped feeling.

I think one of the reasons I love bread so much is that I am too lazy to make it for myself. So when it is made for me, I appreciate it all that much more. The rosemary rolls at The Lighthouse were great texture-wise, but taste-wise they were overly salty, and the herb butter was worse. Perhaps I should caveat this, though: I don’t know if my palate has changed – since Singaporean food as a general rule is very sweet.

I had a starter of Wagyu beef carpaccio, which was pounded so thin to the point of disintegrating. I couldn’t, and still can’t, decide whether it would have been better tinged with a little mustard. On the one hand you don’t want to do too much to good beef, and on the other I think mustard does wonders in certain situations, this being one of them. The jury’s still out on this one. The butternut squash cannelloni came in a thick, rich sauce and topped with bits of pancetta. I thought the pasta needed more egg, but the squash was nice and light and not too sweet.

Overall the food at The Lighthouse is pretty decent. It is a long way from amazing, but then again we are not in Italy. There is a certain je ne sais quoi with good Italian food, I think, because the best of the best has a certain lightness to it, which stems partly from not doing too much to the ingredients. But the best Italian food also has strong, pronounced, flavours, which stems from using top quality and fresh ingredients. How do you balance the two? The role of the Italian chef then becomes taking these top ingredients and making sure that whatever little he or she does to them, it is with the sole aim of accentuating their best qualities.

We did not have any wine at lunch, which was a pity, but I took the opportunity to check out their winelist, which did not impress me all that much. I think one of the advantages of dining out is access to great wines. I’m talking about the high-end, fantastically expensive bottles, which the normal consumer typically finds difficult to procure. Unfortunately I don’t get the opportunity to drink these very often, but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to.

But for a new restaurant, the Lighthouse does everything else quite well. The service is excellent – efficient and yet still personable. The human element of the setting, I think, cannot be ignored. Part of the vibe you get in a restaurant comes from the people that inhabit that space. If the waiters and the managers are not happy to be there, it shows most markedly. And if they are not happy to be there, chances are that you will not be either.

All said, you could definitely do worse than the Lighthouse. I hadn’t had Italian in a while so this was an enjoyable experience. As we took the elevator down I got that feeling that you get when you have left a room but haven’t said all you that you wanted to say. Perhaps some day I will return to say it.