Tasty Food and an Introduction to Natural Wine at Anarchy Wine + Brew Bar

PUBLISHED May 8th, 2017 06:30 am | UPDATED July 22nd, 2024 02:52 pm

Filled with cheap eats, cafes, and students, PoMo is possibly the unlikeliest place you’d find a wine bar. But we can’t possibly expect an establishment named Anarchy to follow the rules, can we? Product of a hefty research paper and law student turned restauranteur Shiying Huang’s passion for and infinite curiosity about wine, Anarchy is setting out to a new age wine bar that helps customers find wines they like, without pandering to critic scores and drinking other people’s favourites.

Currently in the second stage of the Masters of Wine studies, Shiying has decided to focus on funky natural and biodynamic wines, though you’d still be able to enjoy the classic, traditional wine (they have eight house pours and more than 40 options by the bottle in this regard) at Anarchy. While natural wine makers are still fastidious about the quality of their wines, most of the rules that traditional wine makers abide by are thrown out the window. For instance, there’s extended skin contact during the process of making the Barossa Tangerine Dream by Smallfry Wines, which leads this white wine to become golden orange colour. It’s also unfiltered so it’s fairly cloudy. Full and dry on the palate, there’s a balancing act between the earthy, grainy tannic flavour and a juicy acidity that I enjoy.

For a more intense white, or should I say, orange, Gris Gris by Domaine Lucci (Adelaide Hills, Australia) is fondly reminiscent of a sour beer. There’s a kind of balancing act here between the juicy acidity of the blood orange and peaches and the underlying earthy, savoury flavours. Another wine on the list we’d go back for is the Fairy Garden Shiraz Grenache by Jauma in McLaren Vale, South Australia. Skewing towards raspberries and plums, this refreshing, slighty spritzy red wine is perfect for our tropical climate. All the wines we’ve mentioned are priced at $14 per glass and $79 per bottle.

Anarchy shares the same kitchen as Montana, a specialty coffee bar that serves up affordable waffles and all-day dining plates. We had expected crowd-pleasing and somewhat trendy food, and we weren’t disappointed. The savoury portion of the food menu is split into bowls, bites, and mains. Since there’s some crossover between the bowls and the mains, we didn’t order anything from the former. We started with a snack of Roasted Tarragon Cauliflower ($9) – sous vide and grilled with tarragon, the cauliflower was slightly oily and limp but the curry aioli more than compensates for it. We would love to have it with shoe string fries as an option on the menu rather than truffle fries (hint hint).

The Baked Mussels with Yuzu Miso ($18) is as simple as it sounds, bolstered by the sweet acidity of the yuzu and the creamy umami of the miso. The juicy mollusc hail from New Zealand and are plump enough to feel like it’s worth shelling out for (pun intended). From the mains, we had the Coffee Gula Melaka Pork Loin ($24), which was a little too heavy on the coffee rub as the graininess got to me after my third piece, but I liked that the bittersweet flavours didn’t overwhelm the tender pork loin. We like the pairing of the pork with sweet potato mash, but the latter could also be tweaked for a stronger sweet potato flavour.

Surprisingly, the Foie Gras Burger ($24) was a yes for me. It’s probably got to do with how the kitchen team sous vide the foie gras with sake and got it to a sauce-like consistency, rather than having a chunk of fat competing with the US-Australia blend beef patty in the burger. The patty consists of chuck, rump, and brisket in three different proportions, so there’s definitely an A for effort here. The freshly baked buns held up till we polished it off. Whether you love the idea or not, it’s not one for delicate palates.

The plated desserts weren’t on the menu yet when we visited so we had the Artisanal Cheese Platter (3 for $22 and 5 for $35). Served with housemade beer battered crackers, umeshu jelly, and truffle honey, the selection of cheeses at Anarchy at the time included XO Pag from Croatia, a hard cheese made from the milk of a sheep that grazes on pastures filled with herbs, a blue cheese in Colston Basset Stilton, and Saint Marcellin (a soft, French cheese made from cow’s milk). We hear that they’re also bringing in brie, comte, and another cheese in a rotational slot.

With cacao brews – think V60 Chocolate ($6.80) made by pouring hot coconut water over ground cacao nibs –  on the menu, it’s clear that this is not your usual wine bar and will never be content to be. Natural wines is still pretty much unmarked territory in Singapore and there’s no reason to not start with Anarchy.

Anarchy Wine + Brew Bar is located at #01-02 PoMo, 1 Selegie Road, Singapore 188306, +65 6334 3137. Open Mon-Thu 5pm-10pm, Fri-Sat 5pm-12am, Sun 5pm-9pm.

All images by Sylvester Fedor.