Free Hand and fearless: Mōdan’s new menu marks a “daunting, honest and exciting” chapter

Dining at Mōdan carries a certain formality. The meal is as intimate as they come, with just twelve seats side by side around a U-shaped counter. In the centre, chef Mendez and his battalion, silently working away like a well-oiled machine. It’s as if they blend into the restaurant, dressed in the same sleek grey that wraps around its walls. Guests meekly settle into their seats, careful not to disrupt the calm. There’s a palpable tension in the air—a quiet anticipation.

But it doesn’t take long for the room to come alive. Course by course, any semblance of stiffness yields to an uncontrollable excitement—colour enriches the muted space, and guests exchange utterances of deliciousness and awe.

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A warm broth of roasted eggplant, toasted garlic oil and roasted radish stars ease guests into the meal, loaded with umami and salinity to rouse the appetite and open the palate. Free Hand then commences with a surprising start with two ingredients you wouldn’t expect at the beginning of your meal: buttery, melt-in-your-mouth A5 Wagyu; and tamagoyaki, which traditionally punctuates the end of a meal in Japan. The slightly sweet, custardy tamagoyaki, enveloped by Wagyu and konbu honey, arrives with a crown of Nomad caviar and a roasted nori salad, eliciting flavours of the ocean. With this silky bite, Mendez and the Mōdan team make their intentions clear: “to not just bend the rules, but break them”.

Next comes a ball of cured, dry-aged Hokkaido scallop, dressed with fermented apple and dill oil that imparts a striking green hue, and served on a thin ube cracker that juxtaposes the scallop’s supple, somewhat creamy texture. Then, a striking bite with the vibrant colours of a warm sunset meets your plate: a scarlet red beetroot tart shell, sweet botan ebi laid atop uni mousse with yuzu vinaigrette, plus diced nashi pear for some refreshing crisp texture.

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Mōdan’s debasaki has become one of the restaurant’s crowd favourites, and rightfully so. The chicken wings are one of the first things you’ll see as you walk through the door, hung up to dry, front and centre as one would with a Peking duck, achieving a glass skin effect that gives beauty brands a run for their money. For Free Hand, Mendez stuffs the grilled wings with tuba vinegar-seasoned sushi rice, then slices them right across the centre to create two distinct iterations: one with pickled daikon, negitoro with egg yolk sauce, and Nomad caviar; and another with a piercing jolt of wasabi that soon submits to the richness of indulgent chutoro, coating the mouth with its luscious fat.

Their beloved Japanese focaccia also remains on the menu. Denser and cakier than the traditional Italian bread, it’s a Mōdan signature that arrives in the middle of the meal, one that patrons are wary of over-indulging in, knowing there’s more in store. But generously dusted with umami-rich gyofun (a Japanese fish powder used as a flavour enhancer), any attempts at resistance are moot, especially when served with a velvety ankimo butter.

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A beautiful gradient of magenta quickly catches the eye: a generous slice of hamachi, cut so thick it easily stands upright on a fragrant shiso leaf dotted with roasted pineapple, miso, wasabi and pimento aioli. The bottom of the fish, a perlescent white, with its unadulterated, clean and delicate flavour. The top, charred skin-side-down to a blackened crisp, coaxing out the hamachi’s oily, rich profile. Designed to be eaten like a taco, it playfully combines the two popular ways of enjoying hamachi—as sashimi and grilled over charcoal.

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When Mōdan first opened, the team was largely comprised of fresh grads with no prior experience—and that was intentional. “I wanted to build something from the ground up, with people who could grow into the vision of Mōdan,” Mendez reveals. “Since then, they’ve evolved so much—not just in skill, but in confidence, too. Everyone now contributes to the creative process. It’s something I’m really proud of.” Part of this journey includes immersive research trips to Japan with the team. Walking through the wet markets, they were amazed at how exquisite delicacies were commonplace, such as king crab. Inspired by this encounter, they marry the nostalgic simplicity of crab and corn soup with the opulence of Alaskan king crab, enriched with corn purin (Japanese pudding), a smoky katsuobushi milk foam, and bright dill oil.

The team then recounts another stop on their trip—at a train station in Osaka, where they found warm relief amidst the chilly winter with a can of corn soup. While palate cleansers typically lean on acidity and brightness, Mōdan throws the rule book out the window with their take on corn soup: a thin, clear broth reduced from three kilos of corn to extract the [full], comforting flavour of the vegetable, with perfectly chewy soba noodles and dots of ebi oil.

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At Mōdan, the chorus of gasps and admiration can only mean one thing: the nabe, a pot of rice adorned with the most luxurious spoils from the earth and sea. For their latest riff on the Mōdan staple, the team sets the pot right in front of you and lifts the lid. A cloud of steam emerges, revealing rice coated in a dark brown sauce of Wagyu fat, fermented garlic, tare and dried fish.

The chefs swiftly yet gracefully embellish the rice like a sinful mosaic: Hitachi A5 Wagyu from the Ibaraki prefecture, sliced so thin that the marbled fat immediately melts into the hot rice; a shoyu-cured egg yolk carefully cradled right in the middle, begging to be popped; sukiyaki lotus root, king oysters cooked in beef jus and last but not least, delicate ikura. Handed the paddle, guests are instructed to mix everything together, gently cooking the Wagyu. Meanwhile, Mendez serves up a welcome surprise: a fried crab claw with a thin, crispy batter and succulent meat.

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To prepare the palate for the grand finale, Mōdan plates a raspberry and nori sorbet atop kyuri (cucumber) jelly and nori coulis, experimenting once again with savoury flavours in unconventional executions. The first dessert builds on this exploration: an ice cream made with shokupan (Japanese milk bread), nutty brown butter, luscious olive oil and a mushroom cracker. Finally, there’s the zenzai—a dessert often enjoyed as a treat after hiking through the mountains of Japan. Filled with adzuki, the mochi is dusted with matcha powder and nestled in a bowl of macadamia milk further infused with the sweet yet earthy red bean.

Mōdan’s sixth tasting menu, Free Hand, marks an exciting new chapter for Mendez and the team. Over its run, guests can expect thoughtful tweaks and changes to the menu, much like an omakase, featuring seasonal produce and new innovations.

“We let go of strict rules and created from instinct, driven by curiosity and discovery,” Mendez reflects. “I hope guests leave feeling inspired, maybe even a little braver. If guests can feel that spirit of growth and curiosity, then we’ve done our job.”

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