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Cloudstreet

Singapore

• Asia’s Best Pastry Chef 2022, sponsored by Valrhona

Sri Lanka meets Australia in the heart of Singapore

On the Pass

Rishi Naleendra

Pastry Chef

Maira Yeo

Who’s behind it? Cloudstreet is the signature restaurant of Sri Lanka-born and Australia-trained chef-owner Rishi Naleendra and his wife Manuela Toniolo. The couple also co-owns and operates Australian-inspired bistro Cheek (previously called Cheek by Jowl) and its youngest sister, Sri Lankan eatery Kotuwa, opened in December 2020.

What’s the style? Cloudstreet’s tasting menu draws on Naleendra’s professional coming-of-age years in Australia as well as his Sri Lankan heritage. His signature dish of Western Australian marron served in a thick pool of Sri Lankan yellow curry flecked with millets and topped with celery and fennel is exemplary of the restaurant’s culinary philosophy – contemporary with a nod to the chef’s motherland.

Sweet finish: The restaurant added Singaporean pastry chef Maira Yeo to its crew in 2020, when she was looking for a new challenge after returning to her hometown. The match turned out to be a winning one, with Yeo opening a dessert lounge on the second floor and winning the Asia’s Best Pastry Chef Award 2022, sponsored by Valrhona.

On the beverage list: Managed by sommelier Vinodhan Veloo, the drinks menu is structured like a magazine and boasts 400 labels of mostly old-world bottles, some minimum intervention wines and a clutch of stellar home-made non-alcoholic beverages – such as a sparkling yoghurt whey drink with fermented jackfruit and cardamom water.

What’s in a name? Cloudstreet is named for Naleendra’s favourite book, an award-winning novel by Australian writer Tim Winton about two working class families living in Perth.

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