Seasonal Tempura Restaurant Picks at a Goodwood Park Sushi Bar: Tatsuya

Most people searching for a tempura restaurant in Singapore picture a dedicated tempura counter with a copper pot of oil. Tatsuya is something different, and it is worth knowing that before you book. Chef-owner Chia Pee Tat, known to regulars as Ronnie, opened this Japanese restaurant in 1998 inside Goodwood Park Hotel at 22 Scotts Road, Singapore 228221. It is a sushi house at heart, but its seasonal card brings in fried dishes built around whatever has just arrived from Japan, and that is the reason to come here for tempura.

The October 2026 seasonal menu, dated 1 to 15 October on the restaurant's own site, made the case neatly. Between Cod Fish Milt with Ponzu Sauce and Skip Jack with Ginger Sauce sat a single fried plate: Pine Mushroom Tempura. Matsutake season is short, and a kitchen that buys its seafood and produce by air for raw service tends to treat a prized mushroom the same way, with a thin batter that lets the aroma come through instead of hiding it.

That dating matters. Because the card is published in two-week blocks, the tempura on offer turns over with the calendar rather than staying fixed for a year. You will get a straighter answer than any old review can give you.

Treat the seasonal list as a short autumn meal in its own right. Begin with the cod milt in ponzu, which is soft, rich and sharp with citrus, then move to the Grilled Pacific Saury and Mushrooms with Butter Sauce, a very Japanese October pairing of oily fish and forest flavour. The pine mushroom tempura lands best at this point, while your palate is still warm from the grill rather than tired from too much raw fish.

After the fried course, the card swings back to lighter cooking. Skip Jack with Ginger Sauce gives you bonito with a clean, peppery edge, and the Steamed Cod Fish with Sake Sauce is gentle enough to reset everything that came before. The closing item, Sweetened Boiled Chestnut, is a small seasonal sweet rather than a full dessert, which suits a meal that has already moved through raw, grilled, fried and steamed preparations.

None of this is printed with prices on the website, so ask your server what each seasonal plate costs when you order. Ordering two or three seasonal dishes alongside nigiri is the most natural way to eat here, and it lets you judge the tempura against the rest of the kitchen's work instead of making it carry the whole evening.

Tatsuya's standing menu leans hard on fish you rarely see in a casual sushi bar. The first page lists Horse Mackerel, Striped Horse Mackerel, Sweet Shrimp, Sea Eel, Abalone, Hokkaido Rose Prawn, Ark Shell, Flounder, Scallop, Salmon Roe, Swordfish Belly and Amberjack. A sensible pairing with fried food is to choose the lean, bright pieces such as flounder and ark shell, and save the richer swordfish belly or sea eel for after the tempura so that the two kinds of fat do not compete.

The restaurant describes four kinds of seating. There is a 24-seat sushi bar where you eat within arm's reach of the chefs, a main dining room in pale pinewood, an alfresco area, and a private tatami room for small groups. For anyone here mainly for the tempura and seasonal dishes, the counter is the seat to request, because fried food is at its best in the first minute after it leaves the oil.

The dining room works better for business lunches or families who want to talk rather than watch knife work. The tatami room suits a celebration where the table orders a long run of seasonal plates and shares them. Mention your preference when you reserve, since the counter is the smallest part of the room and fills first on weekend evenings.

Reservations go through SevenRooms, linked from the Reservation page on tatsuya.com.sg. The site gives lunch as 12 pm to 3 pm and dinner as 6.30 pm to 11 pm. A long lunch at the counter is the calmer way to try the seasonal card, because the chefs have more time to talk you through what arrived that week.

Goodwood Park Hotel sits on Scotts Road a short walk north of the Orchard Road junction. Coming by MRT, Orchard station is the obvious stop; by taxi, ask for the hotel's main driveway and walk through the lobby. Smart casual clothing fits the setting, and arriving five minutes early gives you time to look at the old building before you sit down.

The building around the restaurant is older than modern Singapore. Goodwood Park began as the clubhouse of the Teutonia Club, a society for the island's German community, and the present structure was completed in 1900 to a design by R. A. J. Bidwell of Swan and Maclaren. It became the Goodwood Park Hotel in April 1929. The tower block, whose turret is often compared with castles in Germany's Rhineland, was gazetted as a national monument in 1989.

Leave a little time before or after the meal to walk around the grounds. The white facade and tower are best seen from the Scotts Road side, and the hotel's own cafes make a quiet place for tea if you arrive early for a dinner booking. Within a few minutes on foot you are back among the malls of Orchard Road, which makes Tatsuya easy to pair with an afternoon of errands.

Bring an appetite for variety rather than a fixed idea of a tempura set. The value of Tatsuya is that one chef-owner has run the same Scotts Road dining room since 1998, so the fried dishes come from a kitchen that also knows its raw fish intimately. Ask what tempura is on the current seasonal card, order it early in the meal, sit at the counter if you can, and finish with whatever the chefs recommend from the nigiri list. Karpo APP can help you plan the rest of your Orchard evening around the booking.