J-emine's reflexionando

We made our way to Kausmo last evening as a semi -celebratory meal before wedding chaos officially kicks in next week and a prelude to H’s birthday celebration.

I’ve heard about Kausmo few years back on their no wastage ethos and inclination towards conscientious living, which is heavily translated through their cooking style, presentation – both food, interior and certain extent the dispositions of the chef and restaurant manager (both are co-founders).

One will say when walking into Kausmo feels like one is being transported to a culinary school kitchen or a minimalist home kitchen with storage and shelves filled with books, large jugs of kombuchas and seasonal produce lying about. A long table is situated in the middle of the room, facing the open kitchen where Lisa (chef) goes about prepping each of the courses (7 including palate cleanser and dessert). Seasonal menu offerings is made available via their newsletters.

Lucky or not, we were the only patron for the 8:30pm seating and had the whole place – including the chef and restaurant manager- to ourselves. We genuinely were expecting a bit more interaction and conversation surrounding the culinary principles, the dishes and even getting to know them – but I gather they were not big on conversations. The restaurant manager came across as slightly abrasive – when I quipped, after ordering my kombucha – “can you share a bit more about Kausmo with us?”, retorted in a flat tone – “with each dish..”. Hmm, sadly to say her introduction of each dishes was rather hard to comprehend, and little to no passion injected. Might have been a tiring evening for her :).

With that said, the chef’s passion for her bakes and her heritage was evident – in the starter: cornbread with local wild bitter-gourd honey – the cornbread was moist, fragrant and reminded me of Thanksgiving dinners growing up. The last mains of wild fish congee was a tribute to the chef’s Teochew heritage, H founded the congee – most delightful dish of the whole meal – the broth was strong but enticing and the salted eggs splattered across the fish, gave off an umami after-linger. My favourite was the rum bananas financier (as mentioned their bakes are great) – lightly burnt with a chestnut miso caramel layer, utterly divine.

Floor/ table service aside – I would definitely go back to support the chef and savour her bakes, kombuchas and genuinely hope, she finds her culinary grounding within her heritage, as that seems to provide a stronger identity and equilibrium to the curation of the menus.

With such a captivating ethos, especially when we’re all a-lot more aware of sustainability choices surrounding us and with such a quaint minimalist space, a warmer host would spruce up the like-ability meter for me.