The Michelin-recognized chef behind popular Spanish-Japanese restaurant Cranes has followed up with another restaurant, this time with a fine dining menu inspired by the street hawkers of Singapore. Jiwa Singapura, from chef and owner Pepe Moncayo and his wife and business partner Aishah Moncayo, opened Wednesday in Tysons Galleria mall.
The menu pulls from classic Singaporean street snacks and other traditional fare with Moncayo’s own twists. Singapore’s cuisine is influenced by several neighboring Asian countries including Malaysia, China, Indonesia, and Thailand, as well as British and the Portuguese influences from years of colonialism and trade.
For Moncayo, Singapore is also deeply personal. He called the country home for a decade after moving there from his native Barcelona to work at a restaurant. It’s where he met Aishah — who is from Singapore — started a family, and opened his first solo restaurant before moving to the U.S. in 2019 to open Cranes in D.C.
Though the D.C. area features a breadth of Southeast Asian restaurants, Singaporean establishments have been largely absent. With Jiwa Singapura, which translates to “soul of Singapore,” Moncayo hopes to shine more of a spotlight on the diversity of Singaporean food and put the cuisine on the map locally.“I’m excited for more people to get to know Singaporean food and to make Singaporean food more accessible,” says Moncayo.
At the Tysons restaurant, that means a menu divided into several sections: street food (popular quick dishes), hawker classics (dishes found in Singapore’s plentiful hawker centers, or open-air food markets) and Jiwa signatures, which feature Moncayo’s takes on classics.
For some dishes, he chooses to stay traditional: the chicken satay is a recipe from his father-in-law who operates a hawker specializing in satays in Singapore, is classic with flavors of ginger and lemongrass and served with peanut sauce.
For others, like the fish otah, typically a spiced fish paste steamed in banana leaves and grilled over charcoal, he chooses to “make some tweaks without losing the trait and flavors of what you might find in Singapore,” he says. Moncayo spreads the fish paste in a tray, adds slices of mackerel, steams them into squares and then grills it wrapped in a banana leaf, adding fried baby anchovies for crunch and burnt makrut lime powder.
Jiwa Singapura’s version of Hainanese chicken — typically poached in stock and hung at a specific temperature for several hours before being served — is presented as a sous vide version served over jasmine rice with ginger sauce. Chili crab with Chinese mantou buns are also a highlight, with snow crabs stepping in for the Sri Lankan mud crabs that might be found in Singapore. An accompanying wooden box provides a cloth napkin with a chain that diners can use in lieu of a crab bib, as well as gloves for diners who wish to keep their hands clean.
Another dish that made it on the menu from the family recipes is the salted egg shrimp — jumbo shrimp with salted duck egg and curry leaves. “This is one of my favorite dishes that my wife makes and we are using the same recipe that she uses at home,” Moncayo says.
The opening menu is compact — just six to 10 dishes in each section — but Moncayo says it was not easy to narrow it down. “There is so much variety in Singaporean food, this represents some of my favorites. There is much more to come in the future,” he says.
Pastry chef Gregory Baumgartner, who brings in 13 years of pastry experience working in various restaurants in Virginia, Baltimore and Los Angeles features desserts highlighting the flavors of Asia such as pandan — fragrant, grassy leaf used throughout Southeast Asian cooking — and coconut. Desserts include seri muka — salted coconut rice and pandan custard; cendol, a parfait with red-bean ice cream, coconut ice, and pandan noodles; and ice cream loti, pandan brioche bread with kaya spread, pandan ice cream and caramelized shortbread.
Signature cocktails include the sea green hued “If Merlions Could Talk” with rum, apple brandy, pandan, and orgeat cream; and the bright violet “The Singapore Girl” with cucumber-infused gin, ginger, lemon, and ube air. A wine list showcases selections from across Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East, with an emphasis on moscatos and sparkling wines to pair with the spicy dishes. A selection of sake and beer is also available.
The restaurant, located in one of several new spaces carved out of the malls’ former Macy’s store — including a new movie theater and a Bowlero — seats 250 with room for 170 guests indoors and 80 on the patio. The grandiose indoor space is expansive; soaring 30 foot ceilings that suspend an impressive floral art installation, and a sculpture of a merlion — the official mascot of Singapore, which has the head of a lion and the body of a fish — anchors the outdoor patio.
Diners can view an open kitchen from the majority of the restaurant, including some parts of the bar area, which has bar seating, plus high-top tables, and round banquettes.The year-round patio features a pergola system that can be fully enclosed or left completely open, as well as a fireplace and a mini bar.
To start, Jiwa Singapura is open five days a week, but they aim to be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. In the future, the team plans to feature lunch tiffin boxes, a stacked set of compartments with different items in each, as well as a dinner tasting menu where Moncayo says “he will go a bit more off-road with Singaporean flavors and international techniques.”
Jiwa Singapura is located at 1702u Tysons Galleria in Tysons and is currently open Wednesday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., though those hours will likely expand in the coming months.
