{"title":"Best New Vegan Restaurants in Singapore Opening This Season 2025","html":"

Verdant Singapore
📍 38 Tras Street, Tanjong Pagar, Singapore 078977
🗓 Opened: June 2025
🌐 Website | 🗺 Google Maps

What Is the New Plant-Based Dining Scene in Singapore Right Now?

Singapore's plant-based dining scene added at least 12 new venues in the first half of 2025 alone, and the latest to open is Verdant Singapore, which launched on 3 June 2025 at 38 Tras Street, Tanjong Pagar. The 60-seat restaurant is the debut project of chef-founder Mei Lin Tan, formerly of one-Michelin-starred Meta, and it arrives at a moment when Singapore's Food Agency has reported a 34 percent year-on-year increase in plant-forward restaurant licence applications. This is not a health-food café bolted onto a yoga studio — it is a full-service, reservation-only dining room built around serious technique and regional produce. The address alone signals intent: Tras Street has become a proving ground for concepts that want to be taken seriously by the city's most demanding diners.

If you care about where Singapore's restaurant culture is heading, Verdant matters personally because it represents a structural shift in what plant-based cooking is allowed to be in this city. Tan has spent three years sourcing directly from farms in Cameron Highlands, Johor Bahru, and Chiang Mai, and the result is a menu that reads like a love letter to Southeast Asian biodiversity rather than a substitution exercise. Every dish on the 12-course tasting menu is built around an ingredient, not around the absence of meat. That framing changes everything about the experience from the moment you sit down.

"We are not replacing anything. We are cooking from the forest floor up." — Chef Mei Lin Tan, Verdant Singapore, June 2025

What Concept Does Verdant Singapore Bring to Tanjong Pagar?

Verdant is best described as a progressive Southeast Asian tasting restaurant with a fully plant-based kitchen. The concept is rooted in what Tan calls "forest-to-table" cooking, a philosophy that prioritises wild-foraged and heritage-variety ingredients over commodity produce. The interior, designed by Singapore-based studio Asylum Creative, uses reclaimed timber from a demolished Peranakan shophouse in Joo Chiat, giving the space a warm, lived-in quality that contrasts sharply with the clinical minimalism common in fine-dining rooms of this type. Asylum Creative is known for brand-driven spatial work, and here the brief was clearly to make the room feel like the food: layered, rooted, and unhurried. Lighting is entirely warm-spectrum, candles are beeswax, and the open kitchen runs the full length of the back wall so diners can watch every stage of service.

The restaurant holds 60 covers across two sittings — 6pm and 8.30pm — and accepts reservations exclusively through its own website, bypassing third-party platforms entirely. According to Tan, this is a deliberate move to maintain a direct relationship with guests and to manage dietary enquiries properly before arrival. The kitchen operates without any animal products, including honey, making Verdant fully vegan by certification — it is registered with the Vegan Society Singapore, which is a relatively rare credential among fine-dining venues in the city.

What Are the Signature Dishes and How Much Does It Cost?

The 12-course tasting menu is priced at S$188 per person, with an optional botanical beverage pairing at S$88. There is also a four-course express lunch menu available Thursday to Saturday, priced at S$68 per person. The kitchen changes its full tasting menu every eight weeks in line with seasonal availability from its farm partners. Current highlights from the June 2025 menu include:

1. Smoked Kelp Dashi with Pickled Rambutan: A clear broth that opens the meal with acidity and umami simultaneously — a technical statement of intent.
2. Heritage Purple Corn Congee with Truffle Oil and Crispy Shallots: Sourced from a single farm in Chiang Mai, the corn variety has been grown continuously for over 80 years.
3. Charred Banana Blossom in Rendang Spice with Coconut Labneh: The dish most likely to generate conversation — the texture is striking and the spice balance is precise.
4. Wild Fern Salad with Fermented Black Bean Dressing: Foraged from Johor Bahru suppliers, dressed simply to let the bitterness of the fern speak.
5. Pandan Petit Fours with Salted Gula Melaka Caramel: A closing bite that anchors the meal firmly in the region.

Price range summary: S$68 lunch, S$188 dinner tasting menu, S$88 beverage pairing. By Singapore fine-dining standards, this positions Verdant at the accessible end of the premium tier — comparable in price to Labyrinth or Cloudstreet but with a narrower, more focused brief.

Is Verdant Singapore Worth Visiting for Non-Vegans?

Verdant is absolutely worth visiting even if you eat meat regularly, and that is the honest answer. The restaurant is not designed to convert anyone — it is designed to demonstrate that plant-based cooking can operate at the same level of precision and creativity as any other fine-dining format in Singapore. Diners who arrive expecting compromise will leave having recalibrated their assumptions. Three of the first five tables booked on opening night were confirmed omnivores, according to Tan, which suggests the word-of-mouth positioning is already working as intended. The tasting menu format also means there are no choices to navigate and no sense of restriction — the kitchen simply cooks, and you eat.

The restaurant is particularly well-suited to corporate entertaining, anniversary dinners, and any occasion where dietary diversity across a group makes a shared menu difficult. Because the kitchen is fully plant-based, there is no cross-contamination risk and no need for separate preparation — a practical advantage that larger groups with mixed dietary requirements will appreciate immediately. Reservations for July 2025 are already showing limited availability on weekend sittings, so early booking is strongly advised.

How to Book and What to Watch at Verdant Singapore

Bookings open 30 days in advance via the Verdant Singapore website. A credit card is required to secure the reservation, with a S$50 per person cancellation fee applying within 48 hours of the booking time. The restaurant requests that all dietary requirements and allergies be submitted at the time of booking through a short online form, which allows the kitchen to prepare alternatives within the tasting menu structure where needed. The team has indicated that a standalone bar counter experience — four seats, walk-in only, snacks and botanical cocktails — will launch in August 2025, which will offer a lower-commitment entry point for curious first-timers. Watch the restaurant's Instagram account, @verdantsingapore, for the exact launch date of the bar counter. If you are planning a visit in the next 30 days, book the Thursday lunch sitting — it is the quietest service of the week and the best opportunity to speak with Tan, who moves through the dining room during lunch more freely than on weekend evenings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Verdant Singapore fully vegan or just vegetarian?

Verdant Singapore is fully vegan and is registered with the Vegan Society Singapore. The kitchen uses no animal products of any kind, including dairy, eggs, or honey. All dishes on both the tasting menu and the lunch menu are plant-based by default.

What is the price range at Verdant Singapore?

The four-course lunch menu is priced at S$68 per person. The 12-course dinner tasting menu is S$188 per person, with an optional botanical beverage pairing at S$88. A S$50 per person cancellation fee applies within 48 hours of the reservation.

Who is chef Mei Lin Tan and what is her background?

Mei Lin Tan is the chef-founder of Verdant Singapore. She previously worked at one-Michelin-starred Meta in Singapore and spent three years developing direct sourcing relationships with farms in Malaysia and Thailand before opening Verdant in June 2025.

How do I make a reservation at Verdant Singapore?

Reservations are made exclusively through the Verdant Singapore website at verdantsingapore.com. Bookings open 30 days in advance. A credit card is required to confirm the reservation. Dietary requirements should be submitted via the online form at the time of booking.

When is the Verdant Singapore bar counter opening?

Verdant Singapore's standalone bar counter, offering a walk-in snacks and botanical cocktails experience, is expected to launch in August 2025. The exact date will be announced via the restaurant's Instagram account, @verdantsingapore.

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