Top chef Joel Robuchon opens Singapore restaurants

French celebrity chef Joel Robuchon on Wednesday announced the opening of two restaurants at a casino resort in Singapore, his first outlets in Southeast Asia.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, a workshop-inspired concept with chefs closely interacting with guests, and the more formal Joel Robuchon Restaurant will open on Thursday at the seaside Resorts World Sentosa complex.

Robuchon, 66, has received more stars from Michelin, the leading guide to fine dining, than any other chef in the world with a total of 26 so far.

There are 22 restaurants carrying his name, from Paris and other European cities to Las Vegas, New York, Tokyo, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Taipei and Macau.

"Today we are very happy to be in Singapore, especially because when we travel around the world, we meet a lot of Singaporean guests," Robuchon said at a news conference.

"They are very refined, very elegant, they know their wines very well, they know their food very well. So it is a very good time to be in Singapore right now," he added.

The 54-seat Joel Robuchon Restaurant is a fine dining restaurant serving classic French cuisine "with the quality of service of a three Michelin-star restaurant," a press statement said.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, with 52 seats, is more experimental and draws inspiration from the preparation of Japanese cuisine and the atmosphere of Spanish tapas bars, it added.

Malaysian-owned Resorts World Sentosa and Singapore's other casino complex, US-owned Marina Bay Sands, have attracted foreign celebrity chefs keen to tap into the affluent Southeast Asian and international tourist market in Singapore.