Herbs, spice, and fire: Tanica brings regional flavours home at The Singapore Edition

When The Singapore Edition opened in late 2023, its flagship restaurant came with a marquee name.

Fysh was Sydney chef Josh Niland’s first restaurant outside Australia, and it ran very much on his terms: A “fish steakhouse” built on whole-fish butchery, dry-ageing, and the conviction that a slab of tuna deserves the same reverence as a rib-eye.

Nearly three years on, the dining room on Cuscaden Road has a new name and a rather different temperament. 

Tanica, which opened in September, swaps one chef’s focus for something looser and closer to home.

Its modern Asian menu roams the region freely, picking up a Malay assam pedas (sour and spicy fish stew) here and an Indonesian iga bakar (grilled beef spare ribs in a sweet-savoury glaze) there, before returning to Singapore with char kway teow and laksa.

A feast of regional fare

The name is a mash-up of “botanical” and “tannins”, which tells you most of what you need to know about the brief. The botanical bit is obvious the moment you walk in; the fern-lined, arboretum-like room is largely as Fysh left it, and the menu itself cites the Singapore Botanic Gardens as its muse.

The tannins nod to the wine list and, more loosely, to the idea of structure. That’s the kitchen’s way of saying it wants flavour built, not simply seasoned.

In practice, that comes down to three pillars: Herbs, spices, and fire. Spice pastes, marinades, and rubs go on before anything meets the heat, and the cooking is split between the wok and a Josper charcoal grill.

Under chef Josh, the grill gave fish the steakhouse treatment; at Tanica, it’s turning out percik chicken (Malaysian grilled chicken) and a sambal-slicked wagyu hanger steak. Western technique still threads through the menu — from dry-aged proteins to risotto — but the compass points firmly to Southeast Asia.

Now, at Tanica, regional fare does the talking and everything is built for sharing. The menu is sliced into snacks, starters, grilled proteins with a side of your choice, and signature mains. 

Those mains range from S$28 riffs on hawker staples such as Hainanese chicken rice to a S$128 XO mapo tofu lobster meant for the whole table.

Tanica also offers a weekday three-course set lunch (S$48) that serves a condensed tour of the menu, from the charcoal-grilled squid to the assam pedas seafood risotto.

Sundays are a more languid affair. Sunday Table (from S$98) pairs a semi-buffet spread of salads, pastries, and iberico ham carving with unlimited brunch plates such as a rolled crab omelette in tom yum crab sauce and a nasi lemak burger. Free-flow drink upgrades start at S$168.

Smoky, spiced, and sumptuous

Our taste of Tanica’s offerings kicked off with the chicken rendang puff (S$10 for two), the restaurant’s nod to the beloved curry puff. Slow-spiced chicken rendang is tucked into flaky pastry, with a roasted garlic yoghurt and a slick of curry leaf oil on the side.

The version here is mild and not as curry-forward as we’d have liked, but we reckon it still works as a great way to whet your appetite for the evening.

Of the starters, the Little Joe grass-fed beef tartare (S$28) gets a Southeast Asian spin. The restaurant typically prepares this with green mango but that evening, it was swapped out for green papaya.

The rest of the dish was built with smoked soy and fish sauce to bring sourness and funk, while a confit egg yolk aioli, crispy shallots, and youtiao (fried dough fritters) handle richness and crunch. Compared to a traditional beef tartare, this one was a fun one to eat!

With the subtle sour tang and crunch of young papaya against the creamy, rich minced beef, it’s an appetiser that’s worth the extra splurge.

On the flip side, the salad of jicama and pineapple (S$22) is a lighter counterpoint, with bamboo heart and cucumber in a tamarind dressing. We’d say it’s rojak-adjacent but much more refreshing, with the dressing’s sweet, tangy flavours.

As for the mains, the “iga bakar kicap” 72-hour wagyu beef short rib (S$58) is the dish the kitchen seems proudest of, and it’s easy to see why on paper.

It borrows from the Indonesian practice of grilling beef ribs until they slump off the bone, here glazed in sweet soy and served with sambal embe (a chilli condiment distinct for its heavy use of crispy fried shallots), herb salad, crispy garlic, and pickled shallots.

Here, the beef ribs are served sans bones so all you need to do is pick up a slice and savour the sweet-smoky char of the meat. The sambal embe is not too offensive; it’s more savoury than it is spicy, and if you’re saving your appetite for just one dish, this would be the one to order.

From the Josper comes the 200g black sambal Murray cod (S$58), paired with an onion and kaffir lime salad.

The cod’s flesh is delicate and flaky, with a satisfyingly crisp skin. Even the accompanying sambal is deep and smoky — a perfect balance for those who want a lighter protein option without compromising on intense flavours.

As with everything from the charcoal grill, it comes with a side of your choice. We had the farm leaves (S$6) in a calamansi shallot dressing and the salad of ox heart tomato (S$10) with calamansi and basil vinaigrette. Honestly, they’re not meant to sweep you off your feet, but still do a decent job as a complementary side of greens to this mini feast.

Finally, it’s time for our favourite part of the meal: desserts. We enjoyed a fragrant pandan (S$16) featuring a pandan roll cake with caramelised coconut, and a soursop and kaffir lime sorbet.

It’s delightfully light, with the sweet aroma of pandan. The sorbet adds a nice touch of sourness, which helps cleanse the palate after that hearty meal.

Elsewhere, Kuantan chocolate & pisang emas (S$20) pairs 70% dark chocolate mousse with gula melaka banana compote and cocoa nib streusel. You can expect this to be more decadent and indulgent, but thankfully, it doesn’t overwhelm or cloy as much as we’d expected.

The overripened bananas work almost as caramel, giving the dessert not just sweetness, but satisfying depth. As long as you share this with someone, it’ll be one of the more memorable chocolate desserts you’ve had in a long time.

Familiar flavours, finessed

Tanica’s reference points are ones most of us grew up with, and from how much we enjoyed the dinner, the kitchen has successfully poured love into cooking those flavours with a little extra polish and pizzazz.

For us, the iga bakar is the clearest proof, with its sweet, sticky kicap and fiery sambal embe given the time and fire they deserve. The fragrant pandan dessert closes the loop, taking a flavour that is about as familiar as it gets and giving it a lighter, more refined finish.

Tanica may not have a celebrity chef name attached for recognition, but if your idea of a good dinner is a table of friends, a spread of shared plates, and flavours you’d recognise, it doesn’t miss.

This was a hosted tasting.

For more ideas on what to eat, check out Curry Popo, a one-man stall at Alexandra Village selling homely curry chicken, and our top spots for silky kway chap.