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Photo: Somma
After more than two years and starting a wildly popular casual concept and hawker pop-up in between, Italian chef Mirko Febbrile has returned to his fine-dining roots, with Somma, a modern Italian fine-dining restaurant-pasta bar.
The restaurant, which opens today, is located in the hip lifestyle enclave, New Bahru on Kim Yam Road. The former chef de cuisine of the now-defunct one-Michelin-starred restaurant Braci hopes to present a fresh take on Italy’s culinary heritage, underpinned by sustainability and creative flair through two concepts under one roof.
Somma, which means ‘sum’ in Italian, aptly sums up what the fun-loving Puglia-born chef hopes to achieve with Italian cuisine. His much-anticipated restaurant houses two concepts across two sprawling levels in the former library of the Nan Chiau Girls’ High School.
A 36-seater fine-dining restaurant sits on the upper level, while diners can enjoy a more laidback atmosphere at Somma’s Pasta Bar, digging into pasta in between sips of cocktails. There is also a cooking research lab and cooking school, where classes on pasta-making, fermentation, and pastry are in the pipeline.
Photo: Somma
Febbrile, who is Somma’s chef-partner, says: “Drawing from different parts of my life in Puglia and experiences around the world, Somma will deliver familiar yet unexpected.”
He has also assembled a star team for the restaurant, which is part of homegrown hospitality company, Lo & Behold Group. The team includes Vincenzo Donatiello, Director of Operations, who was the general manager of three-starred Piazza Duomo in Alba, Italy and Jeanette Ow, Director of Pastry, who used to be Claudine’s pastry chef.
The beauty of simplicity
At the fine-dining restaurant, diners can expect a six-course tasting menu (S$258++) that celebrates the beauty of simplicity in Italian cuisine, with an emphasis on sustainability. Febbrile and his team spent over 18 months developing the menu, which involved research and development trips to Italy, including his home region of Puglia, to source for ingredients.
Photo: Somma
Menu highlights include the Lamb Saddle – Chestnut – Mushroom – Quince, which pays homage to the game and flora of Italy’s Gargano mountains. The lamb is seasoned with burnt apple, grilled over charcoal, and topped with wild boar lardo, pine and chestnut pesto, and pine salt—a process that took more than two months to perfect. Another showstopper is the Slipper Lobster – Spaghettone – Red Carrot – Sea Snails, which features spaghettone made from ancient Khorasan wheat and an umami-filled red carrot sauce.
Somma also showcases a diverse range of Italian and Puglian cheeses sourced directly from the makers themselves, including Young Pecorino Coratino is infused with roasted barley, chamomile, reduced red carrot juice and aged for another 41 days.
Pasta with cocktails
Photo: Somma
Flexibility is the name of the game to survive today’s current challenging dining climate, so Febbrile, who also runs Fico, a beach-side Italian restaurant, also has a casual concept, simply called Pasta Bar. The walk-in space serves cocktails, including the trending savoury ones such as Bolognese Muse, concocted with blended scotch whisky, beef consomme, tomato, carrot, onion and celery. Much thought is also given to bar food such as namesake pastas like Radiatori with River Crab and Capocollo di Martina Franca, and raviolo stuffed with Caciocavallo Cheese and Rosemary Brown Butter.
Febbrile has an eye for design and he has worked with Italian artists for a cast concrete table centrepiece, plateware and a feature wall of 230 ceramic pieces, which are some of the beautiful art installations in the restaurant.
