Asador is a Spanish restaurant specialising in the regional Segovian cuisine.
The restaurant is helmed by Executive Chef Angeline Terese Teo.
Asador is located at Joo Chiat Place.
Asador presents its latest menu with a multi-course walkthrough of Spain’s iconic regional dishes outside of the usual suspects.
Singapore’s East has never seemed interested in keeping up with the rest of the city. While the Central area keeps busy containing chaos over every new opening, and the West and South continue to hoard world-class attractions and entertainment districts, the East is quite content doing its own thing. There are beaches, breezy shophouse-lined neighbourhoods, enough restaurants to make the phrase “hidden gems” redundant, and a general refusal to rush somewhere. Asador, the Spanish restaurant that opened in 2021, sits rather comfortably into this rhythm.
Tucked into Joo Chiat and helmed by Executive Chef Angeline Terese Teo, Asador specialises in the cuisine of Castile and León, the central Spanish region better known for hearty cooking, generous portions and, most famously, Segovian-style roast suckling pig. The latter has long been the restaurant’s headline act, but its latest menu makes a good point that other dishes deserve to share the spotlight.
The meal begins with picoteo. While tapas refers to small plates, picoteo is more about little bites designed for picking at before the main event arrives. In the household, that may simply mean laying out cheeses and cured meats at the table, but at Asador, picoteo is an opportunity to showcase its finesse.
First up are large-calibre artisanal anchovies from Spain’s Cantabrian Sea, crowned atop individual slices of sourdough and brined to just the right degree of salty intensity. Beef tartare here becomes a study in texture, served over potato pavé, its delicate layers flaking apart with every bite. Then there is the Txangurro, a refined little package of crab salad and salmon roe sitting on a housemade potato chip that remains crisp, even after intermittent pauses from eating for conversation — which is more than can be said for most things involving potato, moist toppings, and Singapore’s humidity.
The Segovian affinity for grains becomes more apparent once the mains arrive, with three dishes taking markedly different approaches to the category. Rabo de Toro weaves unctuous oxtail with bomba rice and a grilled short rib. The Pollo pairs grilled black chicken leg with a comforting barley stew. But at the table, the true stunner is the Dorada. A beautifully crisp-skinned sea bream arriving alongside an orzo stew with clams and fried leeks. It is the sort of plate that makes eating something healthy feel like good judgement rather than an attempt at being virtuous.
Dessert depends largely on whether you want to leave feeling comforted or gratefully refreshed. For the former, there is the Tarta de Queso, a gloriously molten baked Basque cheesecake that needs very little selling. For the latter, the Sandia Sangria offers compressed watermelon steeped in sangria, delivering a cool finale that disappears almost too easily.
Asador may not be the restaurant everyone is currently name-dropping out and about town, what with Singapore’s dining scene producing another “must-try” every other week. But perhaps that is precisely its advantage. In an East-side neighbourhood where restaurants can afford to build an audience rather than chase a trend, Asador has quietly found its own people.
Walk in on a Tuesday evening, and you could be forgiven for thinking someone had accidentally moved Friday forward. The dining room is full, the conversation is lively, plates are leaving the kitchen at a steady pace, and there is the unmistakable sense that nobody here is in any hurry to be anywhere else. For a restaurant that has been around since 2021, that might be a more telling accolade than leading the charge as flavour of the month. The East, it seems, is doing just fine without the fuss.
Where: Asador Singapore, Joo Chiat Place, Katong, Singapore
When: Daily from 5:30pm to 12am, Friday to Sunday from 12pm to 2pm and 5:30pm to 12am
Contact: asadorsingapore.com