2025 is off to a sizzling start, with a fresh wave of exciting new restaurants in the line-up for January. We know your arsenal is probably stocked with saved places to visit with friends and family, so let us keep this short. We’ve cut through the noise online to bring you a round-up of five promising restaurants we’re keeping an eye on as they open their doors this month. From a wildly popular tonkatsu joint from Busan that launches its first international outlet here, to a novel hotpot experience at celebrity chef André Chiang’s latest restaurant, here’s where we’re headed to first this year.
1. Tonshou
Tonshou opened to the public in late December right before the year-end festivities took over with full force. So if you haven’t managed to give this popular Busan restaurant a try, now is the perfect time to do so. A single statistic is what generated all the initial buzz, and it’s that in Korea, the restaurant sees 300 tables snapped up in five minutes each day once slots are open for booking. The main draw at Tonshou is charcoal-grilled pork cutlets that undergo a tedious four-step process that’s supposed to yield succulent, juicy slides with a distinct smokiness and pink-hued centre. On the menu are bestsellers like the hire katsu set (pork tenderloin cutlet, $26); Hokkaido Kurobuta rosu katsu ($32); and for something different, the katsu sando set ($21) which sees fluffy bread slices encasing fatty tonkatsu chunks.
2. Murger Han
Talk to just about anyone these days and you won’t be surprised to find China on their list of dream travel destinations for 2025. With this new interest in the country also comes an increasing fervour for its food, from Sichuan boiled fish to Hunan cuisine and the like. This month, Murger Han is bringing representative Xi’an dishes to the CBD, and at affordable price point to add. The chain hails from London – which may raise some eyebrows – but the crowds of regulars packed in the original Euston outlet every lunchtime should speak for itself. We’re looking forward to the signature Murgers, which present the options of pork, lean pork, or spicy cumin chicken fillings stuffed in your choice of flatbread or crusty bread (from $5.80). Also on our radar is the hand-pulled biang biang noodles with customisable toppings like braised beef, pork, and more (from $10.80).
3. Magpie
Yet another restaurant is set to make Tiong Bahru its home on January 9. It’s no secret by now that we’re head over heels in love with this charming neighbourhood which has everything from local food legends to fun, contemporary concepts. Last year, we saw the likes of nose-to-tail grillhouse Dirty Supper, cosy wine joint Fiasco, and Italian trattoria Casa Cicheti pop up in the area. This year, it’s Magpie that we have our eyes on, and for good reason. Kurt Wagner – behind Kafe Utu and Tamba, and whom we can’t thank enough for bringing African cuisine into our food scene – helms the space, along with New Zealand-born chef Eliot Thomas. They’re still keeping things hush, but what we know for now is that experimental and borderless soul food will be Magpie’s main offering, along with a curation of New Zealand beers, craft cocktails, and vintage decor to boot.
4. Bon Broth
André Chiang is no stranger in the culinary world. The Taiwanese chef-restaurateur previously ran two-Michelin-starred restaurants like Raw in Taipei and the eponymous Restaurant André in Singapore. His latest concept is slated to debut in Raffles City some time in the middle of the month. Bon Broth presents chef André’s interpretation of soup, marrying the method of cooking French bone stock with the Chinese tradition of double-boiling. Eight broth flavours are meticulously developed in a dedicated broth lab in Taipei, and meant to be enjoyed by lightly cooking ingredients in each bowl. Call it an unnecessarily refined hotpot experience if you will, but given chef André’s track record creating iconic establishments that people will remember for years, it’s safe to say we won’t be passing up a meal here.
5. Modu
If 2024 was the year where Korean restaurants seriously took over our food scene by storm, then it looks like things aren’t slowing down anytime soon in 2025. Among the new joints offering everything from sotbap to good old barbecue, there’s Modu, a samgyetang-specialty restaurant slated to open in mid-January at Mandarin Gallery. Backed by the same founders of Drim Korean Steakhouse – yes, the one that Korean heartthrob Cha Eun Woo dined at – Modu brings a range of ginseng chicken soup in different flavours to the table, plus other traditional boyang-sik (health foods). Here’s where to savour everything from black sesame and black chicken (ogol-gye) samgyetang, to a goji-berry loaded samgyetang, and even a spicy version of the broth which is purportedly excellent for curing nasty hangovers.
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