Shin Terroir

Shin Terroir isn’t just a yakitori-focused omakase — it’s a profound theatre of smoke and fire

Sandwiched between Tras Street and Tanjong Pagar Road, hunting down omakase joint Shin Terroir imitates a treasure hunt. All information points to a Tras Street address — though that lead ends with a door firmly shut, with no hints of restaurant life.

Refusing to surrender, you prance around the shophouse row before weaving into the white-walled alleyway that neighbours its supposed shophouse unit.

Amid the snazzy restaurants in the vicinity, many of which proudly announce themselves to all passersby, Shin Terroir is an anomaly. It doesn’t chase, it waits.

And that plays into its aura.

The interior feels exclusive, sleek, high-brow. All the sharp blacks, slender mirror panels, leather placemats, and chic mise-en-place intimate an editorial edge, or even a sartorial tastefulness, perhaps.

 

The suave darkness of its monochrome fixtures vignettes the focal point of the restaurant, the open kitchen — or the stage where the chef flaunts his finesse with flame.

Shin Terroir is billed as a Japanese grill — with a particular penchant for yakitori — and that’s reiterated by its fleet of grills commanding the centre position of the kitchen.

A smoking kind of creativity

After you are settled and snuggled into your seat, though, make sure to scan through the 12-course omakase menu line by line, which will reveal quite the eclectic spread for the night, with peculiar items requesting your intrigue.

What does a serving of “mille feuille” gizzards entail?

While grilling is Shin Terroir’s lifeblood, the omakase doesn’t just leap headfirst into the smoke, instead opting to ease you in with some silky. custardy chawanmushi, gussied up with lightly umami dashi, beads of nutty caviar, and scraps of fresh, luscious seafood.

Done with the vegetables and the fish, it was now showtime as the curtains were raised for the main act, the yakitori — six consecutive yakitori dishes, to be precise.

The Otokume is chosen to be the first in line from the smoky sextet. Firm but still juicy chicken breast, then finished with piquant ume kosho, it’s a good start.

Number two is when Shin Terroir’s creative proclivity announces itself with full force: This is the Mile Feuille Gizzard skewer course.

Exceptionally unconventional, the skewer is a layered beauty, alternating between balls of gizzard and nubs of Japanese chives, sheathed with chicken skin.

Oh, the textures. A pristine grill on the gizzards translates to a most sensational crunch, met emphatically by the gusto of chicken skin crackle. A bewitching partnership of textures — never had yakitori quite like this.

Beefing with Shin Terroir

Going the same route of unorthodoxy is the chicken wing, reinterpreted in a way that’s unrecognisable from the teba served at regular yakitori joints.

How do you elevate a Chicken Wing? Shin Terroir imagines doubling the heft by stuffing the emptied, deboned remains with a chicken wing tip, and the theory is proven sound with torrents of juice that leave your mouth in a messy bliss.

Before service, it dons a crown of land caviar to accentuate the smoky flavours with a burst of nutty umami — very straightforward, but utterly efficacious flavour bomb.

To add some spice to the omakase, Shin Terroir throws in a stick of outrageously tender Negima, where the thigh chunks are drenched in sauce, and green peppers are perched upon them.

As far as yakitori is concerned, this negima is as out there as it gets — that mild numbing burn and the punch, floral acidity is a genius masterstroke by Shin Terroir that adds a different dimension, but remains elegant and not too heavy-handed.

The finale, a Tsukune course, isn’t yakitori per se: Shin Terroir tosses the skewer, and instead copts to wrap the Tsukune in seaweed, a la handroll.

Even with this massive transformation, the tsukune handroll makes so much sense, marrying juicy, crumbly meatball with starchy rice and crunchy seaweed — a very satisfying two-bite star.

Six yakitori courses later, it is hard to dispute that Shin Terroir puts on one of the most enthralling showcases, characterised by both technical proficiency and audacious imagination, executed impeccably.

That makes what followed even more unbelievable.

Shin Terroir caps off the dinner with an A5 Wagyu Beef dish that is stupefyingly sumptuous, and the best argument for that age-old maxim that “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Those enchanting canals of fat running through the gorgeously roseate cross-section, framed within a delicate trim of fat — the mouthfeel is as dreamily luscious, as sensually melt-in-mouth, and as outrageously euphoric as all the visual cues imply.

It satisfies everything a marking rubric would consider: Juice-spilling tender, rambunctiously rich, and gently caressed with smokiness.

Shin Terroir might be labelled as a yakitori-first restaurant, but don’t lower your expectation — this Tanjong Pagar Japanese omakase restaurant is the best of the best, peacocking adroit technique, superb produce curation, and the most bodacious ideas.

And I’ll riddle you this: Which other yakitori omakase in Singapore can top their chicken skewers, finishing with such stunning wagyu aplomb?

Reserve a seat here first, before you visit Shin Terroir for one of the best yakitori omakase in Singapore.