Iru Den Singapore Review | Taiwanese-Japanese Fine Dining in a Hidden Scotts Road Bungalow

Where mountain herbs whisper, sashimi glows, and rain drums a steady lullaby on a black-and-white roof.

A Den in the Rain

Scotts Road can feel merciless at rush hour, but step past the hedges at number 27 and traffic dissolves as if someone has dialled the city’s volume to mute. The colonial bungalow housing Iru Den spent decades in quiet decline until Chef-owner Javier Low persuaded its landlord to let him breathe life back into those teak rafters. Two years of restoration followed—rain-softened timber painstakingly stripped, chipped marble floors reset, and an old cigar parlour left intact like a sepia photograph. Tonight the shutters are wide, letting rain-cooled air drift through the dining room and its discreet private salon while we settle in for Iru Den’s Spring 2025 tasting menu—a line-up that will vanish once summer rolls around.

First Kiss: Guava Fizz

A flute the colour of coral dawn arrives the moment we sit: pink-guava, calamansi and the faintest trace of gin, crackling with carbonation. It resets the palate in a single, tropical sigh.

Small Beginnings, Bold Intent

A Keelung oyster, cool and briny, balances on a crisp night-market “UFO” cracker under a veil of sweet-spicy green sauce—a flavour that drifts from citrus chutney to mild chilli jam. Moments later, double-fried sweet-potato batons land wearing a halo of sour-plum powder; we drag them through molten salted-egg sabayon and discover street food that earned a degree in classical sauce work.

A Broth Aged by Time

An ochoko no larger than a child’s fist cradles stock simmered twelve hours from kampong-chicken frames, seasoned with ten-year sun-aged radish (菜脯) and a flicker of pickled chilli. It smells of soy-laced toffee and tastes of grandmotherly comfort edged with kimchi tang.

Seven Days on the Line

Sliced striped marlin, dry-aged for a week, rests on chilled cucumber gazpacho; sour-plum cherry tomatoes sparkle like sequins across the flesh. Each mouthful moves from melon rind to ocean sweetness then lands on a tart-sweet blink that begs another bite.

Bread, Butter, Sun

Warm ciabatta arrives with brown butter flecked with minuscule nuggets of that ten-year radish. Caramel, soy and miso dissolve together; we shamelessly ask for seconds.

A Mapo Whisper

Kyoto-smooth chawanmushi lounges beneath Jinmen cabbage braised in a mild mapo ragù. Sichuan tingle lifts the custard without obliterating its silk.

Cacio-e-Uni

Silken Taichung noodles coil beneath a crown of Hokkaido uni. Wild prickly-ash leaf oil (刺蔥) streaks citrus-pepper brilliance through the dish; yuzu snow drifts over the top. Italian comfort and Japanese opulence share a single passport.

Short Rib, Long Perfume

Twenty-four-hour sous-vide short rib arrives lacquered in white-miso palm-sugar and house-pickled chilli. A reduction laced with maqaw—Taiwan’s lemon-ginger mountain pepper—pools beneath, while charred breadfruit and fermented green chilli keep the richness on its toes.

Clay-Pot Crescendo

A clay pot hisses as its lid lifts, revealing rice studded with taro and ringed by a golden socarrat crust. Chef folds in flakes of milk-fish belly, taro leaves glossed in perilla pesto, and a spoon of ikan-bilis miso. Creamy, smoky, herbal, crispy—four textures, one bowl.

Sweet, Smoky Farewell

Smoked gula-jawa custard meets caramelised banana jam, brioche-toast crumbs and chewy coffee boba. Bubble tea grows up and moves to Paris.

Seasonal note: Guava Fizz, UFO cracker, sweet-potato fries, aged marlin, taro-milk-fish claypot and all ten-year-radish elements belong to Spring 2025 and will likely change with the next menu.

Drinking in Counterpoint

A Paloma remix—tequila, breadfruit chilli, maqaw—mirrors the citrus-pepper glaze on the short rib, while a Popcorn-and-Cola Old-Fashioned (bourbon, salted caramel, house black-cola reduction) anchors dessert. Wine curiosities flow, but these cocktails read like margin notes in liquid script, each referencing the dish before it.

The Island Inside the Pantry

Twice a week, foam-lined boxes fly north from Taiwan: Keelung seafood, Taitung mountain herbs, sun-aged radish bricks from Chef Javier’s mother-in-law’s backyard. Storms can snarl flights, forcing the menu to bend; diners learn to relish that fragility because it proves yesterday’s ingredients truly lived in open air.

Before You Go

Where: 27 Scotts Road, Singapore 228222

Reservations: 50 percent deposit via Resy link on Iru Den’s Instagram

Last Thoughts

We left the bungalow to find the rain had eased into mist. Our palates felt sharpened, spirits lighter—as though that Guava Fizz had bubbled into the weather itself. Iru Den is a love letter between sea and mountain, precision and memory, written in edible ink. Catch it while spring still sings.