Takeshi Araki opens Ao in Singapore after Esora closed

Chef Takeshi Araki opens his new restaurant, Ao, in Singapore this month, his first since closing the Michelin-starred Esora in 2025. A few streets away, chef Johanne Siy has just moved into Esora's old dining room with her own restaurant, Aro.

Takeshi Araki's return to Orchard

Ao sits at 1 Claymore Drive, #01-01, part of the Cloud Restaurant Group, and serves daily from 11am to 10pm. Takeshi Araki describes the food as “elevated yet uncomplicated sharing plates with a touch of fine dining finesse” — built for groups, not solo tasting menus.

Two chefs, one shuttered address, and a gap in Singapore's dining map now filled twice.

The menu lists bluefin tuna tartare over toasted sushi rice at S$28, grilled chicken wings with black truffle mochi rice at S$22, duck rillette at S$20, cold sudachi somen with uni at S$28, and a sea bream ramen at S$28. Nothing on it clears S$30.

Esora's old room gets a new tenant

Aro opened last month at 15 Mohamed Sultan Road, the shophouse where Araki used to run Esora's kappo counter. Johanne Siy calls her menu “Creator's Cuisine,” cooking that resists geographical categorisation and leans on signature ingredients from France and the Philippines rather than one country's pantry.

The fixed dinner costs S$268 a person and includes upgraded versions of two Lolla signatures: avocado with smoked eel, and carabinero prawn with potato bread. Aro serves dinner only on Thursday, then lunch and dinner from Friday to Monday; it is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Read more about Aro's opening menu in our earlier report.

Both chefs lost their signature restaurants within the same twelve months. Esora closed in 2025, after Takeshi Araki and the Cloud Restaurant Group ended its run at Mohamed Sultan Road. Siy shut Lolla, her Mediterranean restaurant of more than a decade, earlier in 2026. Each spent months planning a comeback before landing, within weeks of the other, in the same stretch of Singapore's River Valley dining district.

The contrast in ambition is the real story. Ao's most expensive dish costs S$28, in a room built for walk-ins and shared plates. Aro charges S$268 a head for a single fixed menu, no à la carte, inside a dining room still shaped by Esora's old floor plan. One restaurant is betting on volume, the other on scarcity.

Singapore's fine-dining map keeps rearranging itself. Esora's old address did not stay empty for long; within a year it changed both its name and its price point. See how the city's other kitchens compare in our guide to Singapore's best restaurants.

Whichever model wins diners first, Araki and Siy now have the rest of October to find out. Singapore's reservations books will tell the rest of the story.