Fine Dining Near Me in Tanjong Pagar: Zén's New Limestone Counter

Zén reopened on 25 August 2026 after closing on 2 June for a three-month refurbishment, and the first thing guests now meet after ringing the doorbell is a 16-seat dark limestone counter where chefs plate seven canapés. The restaurant fills three floors of a 1920s shophouse at 41 Bukit Pasoh Road, Singapore 089855, in Tanjong Pagar. Dinner is one fixed menu at S$620++ per guest and lunch is S$450++, Tuesday to Saturday. Searching fine dining near me around Outram Park? This is the three-star table on the block.

Outram Park MRT is the nearest station, an interchange where the East-West, North East and Thomson-East Coast lines meet, and Bukit Pasoh Road sits a few short minutes away on foot. The road starts from Neil Road as a one-way street, then forks, with one arm becoming Teo Hong Road and both ending at New Bridge Road. Number 41 is one of those conserved shophouses, and the evening starts the old way: you ring the doorbell and wait for the door to swing open.

The Michelin Guide lists valet parking among Zén's facilities, which helps on a road lined almost entirely with conserved two- and three-storey shophouses. The surrounding Bukit Pasoh Conservation Area, bounded by New Bridge Road, Keong Saik Road, Kreta Ayer Road, Neil Road and Cantonment Road, gained conservation status on 7 July 1989. Arrive a few minutes early: Tatler noticed the gentle trickle of water at the entrance, a feng shui touch meant to draw good fortune.

Björn Frantzén, born in Stockholm in 1977, opened Frantzén Lindeberg in 2008 and saw his reopened Restaurant Frantzén win three Michelin stars in 2018, the first in Sweden to do so. Zén opened on Bukit Pasoh that same year, reached two stars in September 2019 and three stars in 2021. With FZN in Dubai taking three stars in 2024, Frantzén became the only chef to run three three-star restaurants at once, a status he still holds in 2026.

Frantzén is not based in Singapore, and for the first time the team running Zén day to day is all Singapore-born. Head chef Kelvin Ng trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Singapore, cooked at The Modern in New York, rejoined Zén as senior sous chef in 2024 and became chef de cuisine in September 2025. General manager Rachel Ezekiel spent four years on the floor before her promotion, and beverage director Warren Estrop came from Meta and Saint Pierre.

Frantzén calls the approach casual elegance and told Time Out in September 2026 that some guests in 2018 were shocked by the music and its volume, and that he did not mind. The pop-and-rock playlist survived the refurbishment, along with the three-storey dining flow. Zén's own list of honours includes No. 1 Restaurant in Singapore from La Liste in 2025 and No. 21 plus the Best Hospitality award at Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2023.

The new ground floor replaces the old living-room couches with a lowered 16-seat stone counter, designed so guests sit closer to the kitchen, as they already do in Stockholm and Dubai. Frantzén told the South China Morning Post he wanted to even out the time spent on each floor. Behind the counter, a feature wall clad in glossy Kit Kat Japanese tiles holds Japanese teapots and fermentation jars, a nod to the Nordic and Japanese halves of the cooking.

Seven snacks are served here. Tatler's September 2026 visit named the råraka, a riff on the Swedish potato dish, and the French toast, a fixture since Frantzén's 2008 opening menu. The Michelin Guide describes the original as sourdough stuffed with Cévennes onion, Vacche Rosse cheese custard, juniper-berry balsamic from Modena and shaved Périgord truffle, eaten with fingers in two bites. Canapés can come with a sake-and-wine, mixed or fully non-alcoholic pairing.

Before guests sit down upstairs, the team walks them through the day's raw ingredients on an ice podium by the lift, from Hokkaido hand-dived scallops to Kagoshima A4 wagyu. Six main courses follow. The reopening menu lists crudo of shima aji with artichoke barigoule, quince and nasturtium; chawanmushi with abalone, coriander, shiitake and beef broth; and wagyu with oxtail pressé, morel and fermented Kampot pepper. Full menu changes come three to four times a year.

The dish the group put on its reopening press images is marron with vin jaune, Frantzén Selection caviar, walnut and brown butter. Frantzén told Time Out the vin jaune butter sauce is the French touch from his training in the UK and France. Tatler also ate scallop draped in miso sabayon, chicken dashi, roasted garlic and matsutake. Produce from Japan lands four times a week, and every table has its own standing lamp so dishes plated tableside sit in a spotlight.

Dinner costs S$620++ per guest for the fixed menu, and lunch costs S$450++, with supplementary courses offered at midday. Beverage pairings, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, are sold separately. Estrop's non-alcoholic ferments are the stand-out: Tatler described a Mandarin orange drink with sumac and ginger, and an Envy apple brewed with dried mango and kokuto black sugar. The Michelin Guide's write-up praises the non-alcoholic pairing for eccentric combinations that nonetheless work.

Tables for the coming month are released on the 1st of each month at 10am Singapore time, through the booking form on Zén's website, and the newsletter sends an alert when they go live. Little Big Red Dot reported that September 2026 tables were taken shortly after release. With only 23 seats across three floors, a missed release usually means waiting a month.

Zén asks guests to plan 3.5 hours, nearly an hour shorter than the old four- to five-hour meals, a cut Frantzén says came mainly from the ground and second floors. Here is the honest catch: the kitchen cannot prepare vegan, milk-protein-free or coeliac menus, so skip Zén if anyone at the table needs one. If S$620++ already makes you hesitate, Little Big Red Dot's advice stands: this is not the meal for a first test of tasting-menu prices.

The meal ends on the third floor, the one space only lightly retouched in 2026, with crisp waffles, ice cream and mikan honey, then seasonal fruit, petit fours and digestifs on Scandinavian-designed furniture. Frantzén says that once guests reach the top floor, the pace is theirs. Downstairs, Stockholm studio Joyn redid the main room in biscuit, hazelnut, cinnamon and chocolate tones, with raffia walls and a chandelier of Ann Wolff Snowball candle holders for Kosta Boda.

White tablecloths are gone from the second floor, replaced by bare tables, candlelight and a copper shade over a high-gloss ceiling that throws water-like reflections. A traditional Dala horse is among the Swedish objects on the shelves next to jars of ferments and pickles. The Michelin Guide tags Zén as good for a date night, and Tatler's editor came back after a few years away to judge the new rooms. Frantzén himself says running on roughly 20 covers is what makes this price point work.

Bukit Pasoh Road once held the headquarters of close to 30 Chinese cultural and clan associations, which earned it the nickname Street of Clans. The Singapore Chin Kang Huay Kuan, founded on the road in 1918, still sits at 27 and 29 Bukit Pasoh Road, a stop on the URA's Chinatown Clans and Associations Trail. The name itself comes from the pasoh, the clay jars once fired in kilns on the hill to store rice or water.

A few doors along, units 31 to 37 reopened in 2006 as the New Majestic Hotel, with 30 suites styled by Singapore artists, before becoming the members' club Straits Clan in 2018. Wealthy merchants were said to keep mistresses in the street's shophouses, hence its other nickname, Mistress Street. If Zén is full, walk to where Bukit Pasoh Road begins and find Born at 1 Neil Road, Zor Tan's restaurant in a circa-1903 former rickshaw depot, where the dinner Chef's Menu is S$368++.

Born also runs a S$288++ Experience Menu from Tuesday to Thursday and a five-course Friday lunch at S$228++, with an alcoholic pairing at S$218++. Tan's cooking pairs French technique with Chinese ingredients and flavours. Frantzén's own Singapore favourites, he told Time Out, are Burnt Ends, Claudine at Dempsey and Royal China at Raffles Sentosa, and he likes exploring the city on long runs.

Zén, 41 Bukit Pasoh Road, Singapore 089855, Tanjong Pagar. Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch from noon to 5pm and dinner from 6:30pm to 10:30pm, closed Sunday and Monday. Dinner fixed menu S$620++ and lunch S$450++ per guest, with beverage pairings extra. Bookings open on the 1st of each month at 10am for the following month. Nearest MRT: Outram Park on the East-West, North East and Thomson-East Coast lines.