Sio Pasta brings Michelin-recognised pastas from Tokyo to Singapore

Japanese-Italian cuisine is one of my favourite iterations of east meets west — you get the best of Italian cooking techniques, while also getting to enjoy Japanese flavours. 

There’s a new arrival to Singapore’s bustling food scene bringing just that, something fresh and exciting that’s worth anticipating. 

Hailing from Tokyo, Sio Pasta will be opening its first outlet in Singapore tomorrow (March 26), serving up Japanese-Italian pastas and pizzas. 

Headed by chef Shusaku Toba, Sio Pasta is an offshoot of his Michelin-recognised Sio Aoyama restaurant in Tokyo. 

While Sio Aoyama is a fine dining restaurant, Sio Pasta is a more casual extension of chef Toba’s Sio brand, focusing on accessible dining. 

This is also chef Toba’s and the Sio concept’s first foray beyond Japan. 

Sio Pasta’s space at Raffles City’s basement level is cosy, featuring several small tables, bar seats, and a communal table, all of which give you a full view of the chefs working their magic in the open kitchen. 

Appetisers

Pastas are the main draw here, clearly, but to fully enjoy your Sio experience, we’d recommend starting off with some of its appetisers. 

Chef Toba applies what he calls an “Italian of points” philosophy to his food, centering his cooking on clarity, precision, and balance of flavours. 

This philosophy shines through even from the appetisers, which chef Toba has put together with seemingly unassuming and simple ingredients, giving ample proof that simple is best. 

Our favourite appetiser is the baguette with fig butter (S$4.80) — two lightly toasted, bite-sized slices, with a thick chunk of fig butter that’s made fresh in-house, nestled on top. 

The compound butter wowed us with its layered flavours — you can distinctly taste notes of sweetness from both the fig and honey. If they sold the butter on its own, you best believe I’ll be the first in line. 

Another bread-based appetiser is the baguette and mentaiko butter (S$4.80), featuring a slice of baguette topped with a mound of mentaiko (pollock roe) butter. It comes with so much butter in each serving, that every bite of the baguette is a decadent, savoury indulgence.

Despite its name, however, the mentaiko butter was more roe-forward, and took on an oily, smooth texture more reminiscent of mentaiko paste, than it was buttery. 

However, since I love a good dose of mentaiko, I was more than content with that.

For a more protein-packed appetiser, you’ll want to go for the Japanese-style fried chicken (from S$4.80), which comes with a range of sauces — classic Teriyaki sauce, sweet chilli, sriracha mayonnaise, mentaiko mayonnaise, and yuzu kosho mayonnaise. 

The chicken also comes plain or in a black garlic pepper flavour.

The fried chicken is done karaage style, and boasts a thin, crisp batter that encases the tender and juicy meat. We liked how the rich, creamy mentaiko mayonnaise went well with it.

If you’d like more of a spicy kick with your chicken, opt for the sriracha mayonnaise — it really gives the fried chicken an added burst of flavour. 

Pastas 

Sio’s signature pastas are made with 100% Italian semolina flour, giving it a slightly more nutty and savoury taste profile across the board. 

In general, the pastas come borderline of al dente, maintaining its distinct bite, while not being overly chewy. 

While I’m more used to the Italian style of truly al dente pastas, my dining companion was more than happy that Sio’s pastas were pushing the borders of al dente. He’s been longing for pastas with a bit more bite, and Sio delivered. 

Sio’s most famed pasta on its menu of close to a dozen options, is The Best Mentaiko Pasta (S$16.80), a simple pasta dish that lets its ingredients speak for itself.

We loved that Sio doesn’t skimp on its mentaiko — every bite of this pasta screams with this umami-laden ingredient. 

If you’ve been disappointed by mentaiko dishes in Singapore for its stingy portions of pollock roe, Sio will not let you down.

The fried egg, cheese, salted kelp (S$13.80) puts together an unexpected combination of flavours we ended up loving. 

While the pasta on a whole is a burst of savoury flavours, the salted kelp brings out a distinctive brininess. The flavours really seep every strand, and we found ourselves reaching for bite after bite. 

For those that enjoy cleaner flavours, the applewood bacon and spinach (S$16.80) is the pasta for you.

Featuring an aglio olio base, the pasta itself is a lot lighter on the palate than the previous two dishes, with a dash of spinach greens to balance out the fatty savouriness of the pork.  

If you’re more of a pizza person, Sio also has a small selection of eight-inch pizzas for you to choose from, with flavours such as teriyaki chicken with cheese (S$14.80), and blue cheese and maple syrup (S$16.80) for the sweet-toothed. 

Desserts and drinks

For those who’d like their pastas with a side of alcohol, Sio keeps its alcohol prices rather affordable — under S$10. 

You can opt for a glass of red or white wine (S$9.80), a bottle of Sapporo beer (S$9.80) or a Whisky highball (S$9.80).

To end off the meal, we had the Japanese-style pudding (S$3.80), a custardy confection with a generous serving of caramel sauce, topped with a dollop of cream.

While we enjoyed how smooth and dense the custard was, we found the sauce a tad too burnt, leaving a slightly bitter aftertaste.  

Perhaps its other desserts such as its matcha gelato with raspberries (S$5.80) and vanilla gelato, olive oil, and sea salt (S$5.80) might fare better, should you have space for more.

All things considered, I’ll definitely be back to try the other offerings on Sio’s menu. 

With reasonable price points and simple flavours, this spot looks set to give other casual Italian dining spots in Singapore a run for their money!

This was a hosted tasting. 

Looking for new spots to check out? Try this new Spanish concept at CHIJMES, or this hawker selling comforting Cantonese porridge.