Revolving restaurant Tong Le Private Dining has decorated Hong Kong chef at its helm and new menus

Perched on the 10th floor of the OUE Tower, Tong Le Private Dining remains one of Singapore’s most distinctive fine-dining addresses — mainly because it’s been the city’s only revolving restaurant since 2012.

Known for its panoramic views of Collyer Quay and a reputation for reinterpreting traditional Chinese recipes with contemporary finesse, it has long been a flagship concept of the Tunglok Group.

A new chapter with chef Dicky

It now enters a new chapter with the arrival of senior executive chef To Kwok Kim, better known as chef Dicky. 

Born in Hong Kong, the affable chef brings with him 36 years of international experience and has helmed kitchens across Guangzhou, Macau, Shanghai, Tokyo, Paris, and London.

His resume includes acclaimed stints at Lei Garden, Royal Plaza Hotel, and The Peninsula Hotels group. Chef Dicky has also been recognised with titles such as Food & Wine’s Best 50 Chefs (2012) and a Gold with Distinction Award at The Best of the Best Culinary Awards (2006).

Though he briefly announced a retirement in early 2025, his passion for innovation eventually brought him to Singapore, where he now leads Tong Le Private Dining’s culinary team.

For chef Dicky, joining Tong Le Private Dining is something of a full-circle moment: Two decades ago, he had chanced upon a cookbook published by Tunglok (in 2003), and found that the culinary philosophy mentioned in the cookbook resonated deeply with his own.

At Tong Le Private Dining, he now brings that vision to life, blending contemporary techniques with heirloom Chinese recipes and world-class ingredients.

New menus, refined classics

Chef Dicky’s influence can be seen at Tong Le Private Dining in the form of three new menu collections. 

Lunch begins from S$68 per person with the four-course executive lunch menu.

There are several dinner options, across price ranges, dietaries and even a Japanese-inspired one. 

For example, there’s the Cloud Brocade menu at S$138 per person, the more opulent Jade Blossom at S$198, and Tong Le experience menu, which goes up to S$328 per person — all of which are six-course menus. 

It also has vegetarian course such as the six-course Whispers of the Earth, available from S$88 per person.

While these are the restaurant’s official offerings, we got a taste of something a little different when we visited to check out chef Dicky’s new slate of dishes.

We were served a bespoke S$180 menu — a curated mix of signatures pulled from both the lunch and dinner sets.

It’s not a menu listed on paper, but the restaurant is flexible enough to accommodate such requests for diners keen to enjoy a similar customised line-up if whatever we’ve had piques your interest!

A table of chef’s signatures

The meal began with chef Dicky’s stuffed crab, which comes with lobster custard, king oyster mushroom, bacon, onions, and coconut milk. This two-part dish also includes housemade tofu blanketed in Kaluga caviar, presented in its tin.

Safe to say, lunch at Tong Le Private Dining started strong: The “stuffed crab” was hearty and savoury, while the caviar added just the right hit of umami to the tofu’s subtle sweetness.

Appetisers are usually a warm-up act, but its double-boiled Australian sea cucumber in enriched fish broth will make you think otherwise. 

Despite its plain appearance, this soup packed a punch — salty (in a good way) thanks to the use of pickled plum from Chaoshan, with absolutely no added salt.

It was the kind of broth you’d easily be happy to have in a much larger portion, noodles and all.

Next came Tong Le’s snow crab legs, which came in three different methods of preparation: Steamed, deep-fried in rice paper “shelter-style”, and as a cuttlefish ball. 

Out of the three, we enjoyed the Shelter-style snow crab for its clever use of deep-fried rice paper, served with black bean chilli sauce. 

This dish is inspired by Hong Kong’s Typhoon Shelter crab, a dish where the crustacean is chopped up into pieces, tossed in starch, deep-fried, and stir-fried with tons of fried garlic and chilli.

The gentle heat from the sauce transformed the crab from fresh and light to something far more robust.

Our final protein dish was the poached Saga-gyu slices, served with sauerkraut, baby spinach, and pickled chilli sauce. The wagyu, loved for its beautifully marbled fat, was expectedly rich and buttery.

The pickled chilli sauce was a smart inclusion — it helped cut through the fattiness, and kept the dish from feeling overwhelming.

Desserts closed the meal on a high note, just like how it started.

The standout was Tong Le Private Dining’s cave bird’s nest in Tung Lok’s ruby peach tea syrup, paired with kiwi jelly and fox nuts.

The dessert was light, refreshing, and plated with artistic flair, inspired by Claude Monet’s famed Water Lilies series — in some ways, it felt like an elevated cheng tng, with its chewy, nutty surprises.

If custards are more your style, the double-boiled egg custard in young coconut — finished with bird’s nest and gula apong (palm sugar) — offered a delicate sweetness and a coconut shell you’ll want to scrape clean.

More than just a pretty view

With its panoramic views and inventive contemporary Chinese menus, Tong Le Private Dining has long been a destination restaurant for anyone seeking an elevated Chinese meal, or simply, a meal with a view.

With the decorated chef Dicky now at its helm, the revolving restaurant feels re-energised — the flavours bolder, the concepts more adventurous, and the execution more finessed and rooted in decades of experience.

For diners looking to impress or simply indulge, it’s an experience that pairs theatre with substance — and under chef Dicky’s watch, it seems like Tong Le Private Dining has plenty more to show.

For more ideas on what to eat, try Encore by Rhubarb, a rebranded French restaurant that previously held one Michelin star for nine years, and also check out our guide on these 10 restaurants to spend your CDC vouchers at.