The Restaurant Was French. The Memory Was Mine.

I went to Odette expecting to think about French cooking.

Instead, somewhere between one course and the next, I found myself thinking about home.

Perhaps that is one of the quieter surprises of eating food shaped by another culture. You arrive expecting to encounter something unfamiliar, then a flavour, a texture, or simply the way something is placed in front of you can pull you somewhere entirely familiar.

Odette is, on paper, a celebration of French technique. But sitting there, I became less interested in the distance between Singapore and France and more aware of how little distance there can be between food and memory.

I thought about the meals that taught me what comfort tasted like. The dishes that were never trying to impress anyone. The food that appeared on the table because someone had decided that this was what we should eat that day.

That feeling is not particularly French.

It is simply human.

Julien Royer’s own relationship with food makes that connection especially poignant. He grew up in a farming family in France, surrounded by seasonal produce, animals, bread, cheese and the rhythms of cooking at home. His grandmother, Odette, became the namesake of the restaurant, carrying a family memory into one of Singapore’s most celebrated dining rooms.

I found myself thinking about how strange and beautiful that is.

A memory that began in a family kitchen can eventually arrive at another table, in another country, interpreted through years of training and technique.

And perhaps that is what food does best. It travels.

We talk about cuisine as though it belongs neatly to countries — French, Korean, Japanese, Singaporean. But the moment food reaches a person’s table, it becomes something more personal.

We attach our own memories to it. We compare it with what we grew up eating. We remember someone.

Singapore has plenty of restaurants that make you curious about food, from heritage kitchens to modern dining rooms and the many experiences gathered in Singapore’s dining landscape.

But the meals I remember most are rarely the ones I can describe perfectly afterwards.

They are the ones that make me feel something familiar.

That was the unexpected gift of this meal. I arrived at Odette ready to pay attention to the food.

I left thinking about the people who taught me why food matters in the first place.

The restaurant was French.

The memory was mine.