Maura-SoeparjadiKwik (72 reviews)

I am a loyal customer of Valentino. I found this restaurant to be authentic Italian with excellent home-style food, superb service, and down-to-earth cozy ambiance. On a recent visit however, I discovered that they have moved from Jalan Bingka Bukit Timah to Turf City. It’s now much(!) bigger with much more open space, fine-dining-like ambiance. Naturally, I was a bit apprehensive about this new place wondering if it would still be as good as it once was. In fact, I was actually a bit disappointed that the warm, intimate, comfy place I was familiar with had to move up the scale like this. As I was standing there at the reception, gawking at the new look of the restaurant (which is actually nice but upscale and expansive), I saw the friendly and helpful waiter I knew from the old place. He assured me that this place is still as good or even better. Even though he wasn’t actually the waiter at my table, he and the actual waiter ended up attending us!

My friend and I (just the 2 of us) ordered food that would have been more befitting to feed a large Italian family (we love to eat!). Two starter dishes of premium Prosciutto di Parma combined with antipasto of creamy and fresh burrata, sweet and ripe cherry tomatoes, pellets of vinaigrette and greens. Primi Piatti of fresh lobster linguini aglio olio. Main Course of succulent bone-in prime rib roast, and Branzino Italian seabass. Complimentary was warm homemade bread served with pesto oil. For the wine, my friend had a glass of Moscato and I had the Falanghina semi-dry white wine.

The bread, wine and food were all of superb quality and taste… except for the Branzino. The fish was not fresh, so it had a real earthy taste.

This was a huge disappointment because I never ever had mediocre food at any of my previous visits over the years to Valentino.

Overall however, we enjoyed our dinner and the overall experience. It’s very pricey, which is expected so we don’t even look at the prices when we ordered. It’s one of those “let’s just splurge and enjoy” moments! Still… when the bill came we were quite surprised how expensive it actually was (my friend picked up the bill to celebrate her birthday, which made me writing this review the more enjoyable). I can still say however that considering there are so many new and trendy restaurants in Singapore, Ristorante da Valentino is still the one I would go back to again and again whenever I visit Singapore.