Zott's, not as excellent as hoped

After reading countless good reviews of this place, both my parents and I decided to have a meal at this restaurant last weekend. So did it live up to the hype? Read on to find out! :)

Parking was a bitch there especially on a Saturday night so do go early/have some patience if you're driving!! I love the decor of the place. They had an exhibition of some Russian painter called Konstantin Sotnikov's works and I really liked them for the amalgamation of different things. 

I also love the napkin and the table cloth. Shows the amount of effort they put in. There's also that famous bull in the kitchen. There're bar seats where you can watch the chefs in action. Also the menu has animals at the end of each item to tell you where each dish is inspired from/originated from.

When you're seated, you're given a hot napkin like in Japanese restaurants, nice touch!

A staff will introduce him/herself to you and say that (s)he will be in charge of your table for the night. A introduction of the menu + specialties will then be given. It was off to a good start!

After ordering our food, with very helpful pointers from Siti, we were served a complimentary "bread" platter after awhile

 I must admit, this is new and something we've not really encountered before in Singapore! Usually its just a bread basket so I like how things are changed here. The bread is made in house, traditional bread (google tells me its rye, spelt and malt). The bread we had that day was a bit soggy, a little too chewy for my liking as if it was toasted and then left outside for awhile.

On the left: House bread with radishes - I thought this was okay couldn't really taste the radish

Middle: Crackers - this was savoury and really light - a little bit like meringue 

Right: House bread with chives - I think there was something spread onto the bread before topping it with chives and I liked this the most.

Condiments: sea salt & tomatoes - I really loved the tomatoes!! Super sweet and juicy

This is the dish everyone orders and honestly its freaking eye catching and attention capturing with the red apple sitting there. Reminds me of snow white. 

Carpaccio d espadon

Marinated, thinly sliced swordfish with a frozen Topaz apple creation

$28

The star of this dish was the apple, hands down. The swordfish's taste was totally overpowered by the apple, barely any taste of the fish at all. I loved the apple. It looks hard but the inside is a soft apple mousse. To me, it tastes like yoghurt, not really apple. I love the mousse + the jelly covering (red layer) + crunchy pistachio nuts below. There was also ikura (salmon roe) but that seems like an "oh okay I have this so lemme add it in" kinda thing. This is only getting high marks cos of the apple. To be fair, the swordfish wasn't fishy or bad, and tasted q fresh, 3.2/5

Kaiserschmarren Zott's Style

Souffled pancake, caramelised and shredded, with pan-fried foie gras and pineapple-goose liver ice cream

$29 (starter portion) - you can also have it as a main for $45

This is a marriage between savoury and sweet. The foie didn't have much taste, was in fact quite bland. The pancakes, I'm not sure what the texture is supposed to be like but the impression I had was that its supposed to be crispy but wasn't. No buttery fragrance, barely any hints of taste. The accompanying pineapple sauce was quite good. The ice cream, was not cold at all, I wouldn't even call it ice cream. Didn't taste like goose liver nor pineapple. 2.8/5

We were recommended the sisi style (with stewed plums and vanilla ice cream), perhaps we should've stuck to that

Bouillabaisse Marseillaise

Clear Provencal fish broth with red scorpion and poached fish and fennel, served with toasted baguette and rouille sauce

$87

How do you eat this? Put the sauce on the toasted baguette, then soak it in the broth. This combination was quite ingenious and it works well! The sauce tastes a little like mustard. (according to wiki, rouille is a sauce consisting of olive oil, breadcrumbs, garlic, saffron and chilli peppers) 

The broth honestly was very rich and full of flavour! So rich that it feels like there's lots of butter or sth in the soup haha. The seafood was fresh. There were also potatoes in the soup. There were 2 slices of red scorpion and 2 slices of poached fish. 

For 87bux I thought it was a bit steep for bouillabaisse. This is one of Zott's signatures. 3.3/5

 Bondage Chicken

Juicy roasted poussin, served on a metal rod with either truffle mayo/fruity sour cream

Bavarian style: seasoned with sweet paprika powder, curry and cayenne pepper OR

Provencal style: seasoned with butter, thyme and salt

$36

Serving the chicken like that is really quite creative, but honestly it is a little difficult to cut up the chicken like that especially when its nearing the metal rod. Siti very kindly allowed us to try both sauces - truffle mayo & fruity sour cream. I didn't try this chicken so can't really give good feedback about this and its all based on my parents' opinion. The chicken itself is good, juicy and tender. We had ours done Bavarian style but the seasoning was not apparent when they ate it. My mom thought it was a little weird to have mayo with chicken and she said the sour cream was really q sour! Overall it was a chicken that was done well but whether you like it with the sauce, thats another thing. 3.5/5

Saint Pierre

John dory with sugar snap peas, "plum coals" and kumquats

$56

The plum coals are more like deep fried plums (tempura-style) and was a great idea! The fish sadly, was chewy and felt like it was overcooked. When we fed back to Siti, she said something about thats why she recommended the rouget-barbet (grilled red mullet) to us instead of this. 3/5

We weren't impressed by the mains and didn't have much enthusiasm for desserts so we gave them a pass.

We came with really high expectations due to the raving reviews, perhaps that is why we felt so disappointed when it did not live up to the hype. We really wanted to like you Zott's. I love your space, your staff and your open kitchen. I love your ideas, your creativity, but somehow it just doesn't work for us. I'm not sure if this is a not-used-to-alps-cuisine kinda thing or what. I believe you should still give this restaurant a try and give form your own opinions about it because you may like it! Oh and their bathroom has really great decor!

Zott's

97 Amoy Street

62230913

Mon-Fri 1130am-230pm, 530pm-midnight

Sat 530pm-midnight

Closed on Sundays

Website