Gilmore & Damian D’Silva by celebrated local chef Damian D’Silva has opened its doors at National Gallery Singapore’s former Supreme Court wing. Aside from a newer, swankier space (moving from Rempapa in Paya Lebar), it is here, in the same building, that D’Silva’s grandfather Gilmore — “Pop” to the family — once lived, safekept the keys for 21 years as the Supreme Court’s first and only custodian, and even occasionally cooked for judges. The new restaurant is D’silva’s most direct tribute yet, paying a full-circle homage, set where Pop’s sense of duty once played out in daily rituals of care.
If you’ve followed D’Silva’s cooking over the years, Pop has always been a steady presence in the background, as D’silva recreated and reinterpreted several of Pop’s recipes. Here, he steps into the foreground.
Pop, we’re told, was an adventurous and talented cook known for masterful Eurasian dishes and explorations beyond; just as memorably, he was “a perfect European gentleman”, with proper manners and a generosity that made everyone feel at home. The restaurant takes those qualities and translates them into a premium-casual dining concept that feels warmly sociable.
The origin story is anchored in a surprisingly tender moment from D’Silva’s childhood. When Pop asked why an 11-year-old Damian wanted to learn recipes that had taken a lifetime to master, the boy replied: “So that I can still eat the food you cook when you are not around.”
Pop kept a treasured recipe book for only the most complicated dishes; much else was unwritten and at risk of being lost. At Gilmore & Damian D’Silva, D’Silva’s vision is to preserve and propagate Eurasian and Singapore heritage flavours through food that is made the patient way — from scratch, using traditional methods, with a “doing it right” ethos that’s become his hallmark. The dishes are also designed for sharing, echoing the communal spirit of Pop’s table, where friends and family gathered over a meal.
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The interior, conceived to hold “heritage, memory, and continuity” in delicate balance, pairs a neo-colonial, pre-independence mood with pared-down modernism, so the space feels elevated yet intimate, and unmistakably connected to its historic setting. In the main dining hall, clean lines and rhythmic screens nod to the Supreme Court’s order and dignity, while ebonised timber and walnut deepen the warmth. There are brass key motifs too, an elegant nod to Pop’s years as caretaker, and the heart of the room is The Gilmore Collection: a display of beloved belongings, from vintage crockery to century-old furniture, threading his personality into the fabric of the restaurant.
Look up and you’ll spot another storytelling flourish: custom-designed lights, including bird-shaped lamps that reference Pop’s fondness for bird-keeping, as well as a sculptural centrepiece created through a collaboration between the interior designers Laank and paper artist Peter Gentenaar.
If the room is about legacy, the food is about making that legacy deliciously immediate. Start with the Teochew ngoh hiang, which arrives crisp and burnished, wrapped in caul fat and served with chuka chilli and a sweet sauce. Then there’s the nourishing chicken soup in coconut. Chinese herbs (red dates, goji berries, codonopsis root, licorice, Solomon’s seal, cordyceps flower and Chinese yam) are steamed with free-range chicken, then finished with coconut water and Hakka yellow wine and further steamed in the coconut husk.
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The vegetable dish, ambiler kachang or stir-fried long beans with salted fish was an unexpected dish that stole the show. A paste of shallots, garlic and chilli is sautéed till fragrant, then long beans absorb a housemade tamarind liquid before the salted fish is folded through. The result is wonderfully appetising: tangy, savoury, and insistently moreish, the acidity bright enough to reset your palate and keep you reaching back for another bite.
Seafood shows up in comforting, coconut-rich forms too. Cowdang — stewed coconut prawns — features onions and shallots fried soft, then a blended paste of ginger flower, ginger, garlic and green chillies, with wild-caught sea prawns simmered and coconut milk stirred in at the end. The sauce is fragrant and soothing, coating the prawns in a way that feels both homely and luxurious. For a smokier, more assertive turn, pesce assa arrives as Korean seerfish coated in a sambal of 11 ingredients, wrapped in banana leaf and grilled over charcoal.
Dessert continues the Eurasian through-line with the sugee cake. Here, semolina is soaked overnight in butter, then baked with toasted almonds and a hint of brandy. It is tender and fragrant, while being especially indulgent alongside a cloud of chantilly cream. And if you want to end in a more nostalgic, snackable way, the Singapore heritage kuehs come as a rotating selection made from scratch in-house, with names that read like a greatest-hits list: kueh kosui, kueh salat, kueh ku, kueh bingka, pulut bingka and sarang semut.
