Madame Fan’s bar concept looks to win fans

Swanky modern Chinese restaurant Madame Fan launches its cocktail bar; its cocktail programme combines mixology and culinary worlds with an Orient twist.

You’d think that South Beach Avenue would had enough drinks concepts to last a lifetime. There’s Court Martial Bar by JW Marriott on the avenue itself, and also gin-focused Tonic hidden within the hotel’s lobby. Then there’s specialty whisky bar Quiach Bar, as well as Alchemist Beer Lab for those who want to try infused beers. And that’s only scraping the surface.

But here comes a bar concept that may just top them all – Madame Fan, or to be more exact, Madame Fan Bar, and one that may just rival the best cocktail bars in town. The bar by contemporary Cantonese restaurant by famed restaurateur Alan Yau is a brave experiment into combining the culinary and mixology worlds into one, and even more gutsy because few think of cocktails and Chinese food at the same time.

Tasked to pull that off is Madame Fan head mixologist Davide Boncimino. You might remember the bartender – from his time at hotel speakeasy The Other Room; he was at Bago by Lime House before that.

Boncimino may just be the right person for the task; his personal philosophy of “creating drinks that are good enough to eat” suits a space looking to fuse different culinary ingredients and techniques into crafted cocktails.

“From high-quality ingredients to liqueurs to garnishes – every one of our cocktails contain an element of food tailored specifically to the drink,” explains Boncimino. “We focus on combining our knowledge of the kitchen with the bar to deliver inventive compositions that enable the drink palate to enter an exciting new world of flavour.”

Madame Fan – A classy clash of cultures, techniques and flavours.

That craftsmanship extends to making their own ingredients that go into the drinks, whether it’s house infused spirits or even making their sorbet from scratch.

Take for example Madame Fan’s (Not) Classic PBJ. It’s an Oriental take on the Old Fashioned that uses Glenfiddich 15YO fat washed with peanut butter and combined with a house-made liqueur made with caramelised Chinese kumquats. The Portofino too, puts together Hendrick’s gin, house-made strawberry and cherry tomato shrub, salted caramel, and lemon. Or the Yu Cha, an Oriental twist of the classic Martini using gin, shiso-infused vermouth and green tea liqueur.

We’re a big fan of the O&O; this sees Star of Bombay gin, vermouth, olive cordial and soda scented with osmanthus tea mixed into a highball for a very refreshing tipple. And for those who missed Boncimino’s award-winning Marshall cocktail – the one that helped make him the Singapore winner of the Bacardi Legacy cocktail competition in 2017 – it makes a comeback on Madame Fan’s cocktail menu.

How Madame Fan will fare in the exceedingly crowded cocktail bar space in Singapore is anyone’s guess. But based on what we’ve seen and tasted, the concept is unique enough. And if Madame Fan can pull off modern Chinese food and cocktail pairings really well, that could be fan-tastic.