Nicolas Le Restaurant Reopens on Teck Lim Road With A Contemporary French Menu and Immersive Wine-Boutique Experience

The name stays, the story evolves: Nicolas reopens under new ownership as a warmer, more intimate wine boutique and restaurant.

The faces of Nicolas Le Restaurant’s new chapter:

Guillaume and Alynna

Nicolas Le Restaurant, the well-loved wine bar and restaurant on Teck Lim Road, has reopened under the direction of General Manager Guillaume Martin, with Chef Alynna Tan leading the kitchen and Sommelier Brosnan Ong overseeing the wine programme. Together, they now steer the next chapter of a place built, from the very beginning, around wine. The intimate 35-seat space now pairs an à la carte menu with a wine boutique format that invites guests to browse approximately 900 references directly from the shelves, opening for afternoon browsing and aperitivo before transitioning into dinner and, later, a relaxed wine bar until midnight. 

“The name stays, the story evolves,” says General Manager Guillaume Martin. The core idea of Nicolas remains unchanged: a place to discover new wines and revisit old favourites in a relaxed, intimate, and welcoming atmosphere. As both a restaurant and a wine boutique, Nicolas invites guests to browse the bottles on its shelves, ask questions, discover something new—and take a bottle home if they fall in love with it.

A Warmer Dining Space

The renovation has softened Nicolas Le Restaurant into a cosier, more intimate room, while the menu has been rebuilt from the ground up. Where the restaurant was previously built around set menus, Nicolas now offers guests the freedom of à la carte dining, smaller, shareable plates that let guests move through a curated range of dishes at their own pace. 

What hasn’t changed is the spirit of the place. Guests can drop in for a glass of wine and a snack, share a few plates with friends, or settle in for a full meal—good food, good wine, and none of the formality. “I want guests to leave Nicolas the way they’d leave dinner at a friend’s place—cosy, comfortable, at home,” says Martin. 

With only 35 seats, Nicolas is designed to feel intimate and personal. The restaurant opens from 4pm as a wine boutique for afternoon browsing and aperitivo. Dinner is served until 9pm, after which the room settles into a cosy wine bar through to midnight.

Modern French Cuisine 

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From left to right: 

Chilean Seabass, Lamb Rack, Mussel Toast 

Chef Alynna Tan has completely reimagined the food menu at Nicolas, keeping the cooking firmly French at its core while expressing it through a contemporary lens that brings greater lightness, balance and approachability. Classical French technique and flavour provide the foundation, layered with subtle Asian influences in the seasoning and flavour combinations. Rather than fusion for its own sake, Alynna perceives this as French bistro cooking sharpened by Japanese precision, ingredients and techniques. 

Alynna’s style of cooking is reflected in the new menu’s dishes, such as the Chilean Seabass ($45), served with charred scallions and capers and finished with a verjus beurre blanc that balances richness with acidity. The Lamb Rack ($48) pairs wasabi chimichurri with silky pomme purée, introducing a measured heat to a familiar French composition, while the Mussel Toast ($19 for three pieces) brings together the natural brininess of mussels with the warmth of nduja and freshness of chives. Each dish offers a different expression of her signature approach, using acidity, freshness, spice and umami to bring a contemporary edge to French foundations. 

“Modern French cuisine, to me, is French at its foundation, contemporary in its execution, and personal in its expression,” says Chef Alynna. “It’s not about turning the food into French-Asian fusion—the dish should still clearly read as French, with the Asian elements supporting it rather than defining it.” 

Tan’s route into the kitchen began with an unexpected change of direction. While studying dance at LASALLE College of the Arts, an injury prompted her to take a gap year, during which she began cooking regularly at home and discovered the sense of purpose she had been seeking. She later trained at The Culinary Institute of America in Singapore, interned at Gastrologik in Stockholm and went on to work in acclaimed kitchens including Odette, Esora and Humpback in Singapore, as well as Maaemo in Oslo. 

"Food has always been my love language, even before I realised I wanted to become a chef professionally," says Chef Alynna. "I enjoy feeding people and seeing them enjoy my food."

A Wine Boutique at Heart 

Sommelier Brosnan Ong 

Wine remains the heart of Nicolas. At launch, the cellar holds some 900 wine references and 2,800 bottles, curated across renowned wineries, hidden gems and top-tier vintages. In a deliberate departure from convention, Nicolas has done away with the traditional printed wine list altogether—guests are instead invited to browse the shelves directly, engaging with the bottles as they would in a boutique, with the team on hand to guide and recommend. 

Each month brings a new “selection of the month,” introducing fresh references to discover, including two wines each of Champagne, white and red offered by the glass. Nicolas will also continue to host winemakers with whom the team shares close personal relationships for specially curated dinners, giving guests in Singapore the chance to discover producers from around the world. 

“It’s about the guest experience—engagement, immersion, discovery,” says Sommelier Brosnan Ong on the decision to let guests browse freely. “Whether you’re a serious collector or just curious, there’s always something by the glass or by the bottle worth discovering.” 

Brosnan joined Nicolas six months before the reopening and previously worked at three-Michelin-starred Les Amis. Having already developed close relationships with the restaurant's regular guests, he brings both continuity and a deep understanding of their individual tastes to its new chapter.

A Team Built on Hospitality 

The Nicolas Le Restaurant Team

The new leadership team brings together experience from acclaimed restaurants across Europe and Singapore, guided by an approach to hospitality that is attentive without being imposing. 

General Manager Guillaume Martin’s career spans Michelin-starred dining rooms, wine education and restaurant openings. A graduate of Vatel’s hospitality-management programme in Belgium who later studied wine business at KEDGE Business School in Bordeaux, he has worked at L’Assiette Champenoise and Ma Cuisine, spent 18 months with a winery in southern France, and served as opening Restaurant Director of Brasserie Odéon in Geneva. 

At Nicolas, Martin draws on his experience across both the dining room and the vineyard to lead a close-knit team focused on anticipating guests’ needs while keeping the experience natural and unforced. With Alynna leading the kitchen, Brosnan guiding guests through the cellar and Martin overseeing the dining room, Nicolas enters its next chapter with a clear point of view: contemporary French cooking, a wine programme built around discovery and hospitality that feels warm and personal. It is an evolution of what Nicolas has always stood for—delicious food, great wine and the freedom to enjoy both without formality.

With Alynna leading the kitchen, Brosnan guiding guests through the cellar and Martin overseeing the dining room, Nicolas enters its next chapter with a clear point of view: contemporary French cooking, a wine programme built around discovery and hospitality that feels warm and personal. It is an evolution of what Nicolas has always stood for delicious food, great wine and the freedom to enjoy both without formality.

*All prices are subject to a 10% service charge and prevailing GST.

All photo credits are given to: Nicolas Le Restaurant