At Michelin-starred Marguerite, chef Michael Wilson is putting Australian produce centre stage
The Singapore restaurant’s new menu draws on wild kangaroo, coral trout, native botanicals and bush foods as Wilson reconnects with the ingredients of his home country.
Smoked eel, oyster pearl, Australian native sea succulents, Amur caviar. (Photo: Marguerite)
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When modern European restaurant Marguerite opened in 2021, Singapore was still in COVID-era limbo. We barely knew if we could dine out in pairs or fives, or at all; or when a shipment would arrive, if ever. It was, to put it mildly, about the worst possible time to open a restaurant. Yet, just eight months on, Marguerite defied the odds by garnering a Michelin star – odds that weren’t particularly favourable to begin with since the space it occupies within the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay had seen several chefs come and go before Wilson took it on.
These days, Marguerite has held its Michelin star for four consecutive years. And having laid a solid foundation for the restaurant, Wilson has had time to do something he hadn’t done in a while: spend more time in his native Australia.
Last year, he explored the tropical north around Port Douglas, travelled to Perth, and returned home to Gippsland, Victoria, picking up a stint as a guest judge on MasterChef Australia along the way. Those trips reconnected Wilson with farmers, producers and foragers in his home country, renewing his appreciation for Australian produce.
“Honestly, it was incredibly inspiring… how much diversity exists across the country, not just in ingredients, but in the environments and people that shape them,” he said.
It was so inspiring that Marguerite’s menu now places terroir at the centre of the conversation, where Australian ingredients are rarely framed in such terms outside of the motherland. In the restaurant’s new era, Australia is expressed through the likes of wild red kangaroo consomme a la pho and coral trout from the Pilbara, dry-aged for five days, cooked over charcoal and served with a sabayon made with Noble One botrytis semillon from De Bortoli, one of Australia’s largest family-owned wine companies.
Native botanicals form the connective tissue, with Australian seablite and samphire accompanying smoked eel and a pearl made from Coffin Bay oyster mousse, while warrigal greens are served with grilled wagyu from New South Wales. Ingredients like native pepper berries, wattleseed and old man saltbush serve as more than garnishes in desserts. “These ingredients bring so much nuance and complexity to the dishes. They’re central to how we wanted the menu to feel and taste,” Wilson explained.
They are also delicate, expensive and don’t travel well, which explains why they seldom make it out of Australia. “To get around that, we’re starting to develop our own supply chain and have spent a lot of time building direct relationships with specialist foragers and suppliers in Australia. Some produce arrives fresh, while others are foraged and processed in forms that are dried, preserved, pickled or fermented, which allows us to work with the ingredient while maintaining its integrity.”
The process has opened up unexpected territory, calling for more creative thinking from the kitchen to translate traditional bush tucker like bunya nut into new forms that suit the fine dining format. “If you boil or stew [bunya nuts] traditionally, the texture can become sticky and quite unpleasant. But when we ferment it with koji rice and salt, it transforms completely and develops into this beautiful bunya nut miso with incredible depth and umami. That kind of experimentation has been one of the more exciting parts of building our menu,” Wilson said.
What he seems most energised by, though, is what’s on the way: house vinegars, garums and fruit wines slowly developing in the back room, patiently waiting to find their way into the menu. “The most exciting part is that we’re still very much evolving,” he said. “I feel like we’re only just scratching the surface.”
Marguerite’s seven-course signature menu is priced at S$288++ (US$223). Lunch is available from Thursday to Sunday, with a four-course menu at S$148++ and the full seven-course signature menu at S$288++.
Source: CNA/bt
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