Ann Siang Hill does not need another restaurant with a good story. What it needed was one with a coherent point of view, and that is precisely what Louis Pacquelin delivered when he opened Les Ducs. Two years on, with Michelin recognition confirmed in 2026 and a dining room that fills without the machinery of hype, the French chef-owner has arrived at a clarity that most restaurateurs spend careers chasing.
Pacquelin grew up in La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast of France, trained under Alain Ducasse, and was working at Aux Lyonnais in Paris at eighteen. By his mid-twenties he was running seven restaurant concepts in Canada. He later helmed Akrame Benallal’s fine-dining operation in Shanghai before being brought to Singapore by Ducasse himself to launch BBR at Raffles Hotel. A subsequent chapter as chef-partner at Clos Pasoh gave him the final piece: an understanding of what a serious independent restaurant in this city demands of its owner. Les Ducs is where all of that lands.
The cooking here operates under a philosophy Pacquelin calls “French Fun Dining,” which is better understood through the food than the phrase. Classical French technique is the foundation, built through years in brigade kitchens where sauce work, butchery and precision are not optional. What has changed, through sustained immersion in Asian markets, regional producers and the daily sensory vocabulary of Southeast Asia, is the instinct layer. The spices, the aromatics, the acidity, the brightness. These are not additions applied at the end. They are embedded in how Pacquelin thinks about a dish from the beginning.
The spring dinner menu demonstrates this with quiet assurance. The Panisses and Mayonnaise au Furikake ($12) opens the meal with chickpea fritters and a furikake mayonnaise that introduces umami without aggression. The Palourdes and Bouillon Javanais ($25) takes French clams and places them in a Javanese soto ayam broth, a pairing that reads as inevitable rather than engineered. The Foie Gras Poché ($45) is the kitchen’s most considered statement: poached foie gras with the yielding texture of a flan, accompanied by miso, daikon and mushrooms. The French discipline is total. The Japanese register is handled with equal fluency. For the table willing to commit, the Bourguignon de Joues de Boeuf Wagyu ($95) threads Indonesian rawon daging spices through a red wine braise of wagyu cheek with a precision that rewards attention.
Lunch operates under the Bouillon banner, Monday to Saturday, and pulls from a different register entirely. This is Pacquelin cooking the food he grew up eating, priced for accessibility and executed without ceremony. Duck rillettes at $8. Confit duck leg with sautéed potatoes at $22. Beef tartare with fries at $20. Le Bouillon Les Ducs, a chicken broth with vegetables and French noodles at $12, is the kind of dish that a less confident chef might overlook in favour of something more decorative. Here it earns its place on the menu honestly.
The full evening, however, begins upstairs.
Madame Claude occupies the upper floor of the same heritage shophouse and runs as an independent proposition: a cocktail lounge and late-night social space open Tuesday to Saturday from 5:30pm. The interiors draw from the atmosphere of a Parisian salon, dim and deliberate, with velvet banquettes and the particular quality of a room that was not designed to be stumbled upon. The spring cocktail programme introduces seven new drinks alongside two returning signatures, with French-leaning bites crossing from the Les Ducs kitchen to keep things grounded. Entertainment rotates through DJ sets, live music and themed evenings, giving the space a genuine programme rather than an ambient backdrop.
Between Les Ducs and Madame Claude, Pacquelin has assembled something with unusual range. Lunch downstairs, a full dinner service through the evening, cocktails until midnight. Each experience sits within a coherent whole rather than competing with the others. Ann Siang Hill has always attracted operators who understand that neighbourhood, atmosphere and food are inseparable components of the same argument. Pacquelin makes that argument well, and with increasing confidence.
Les Ducs and Madame Claude 8 Ann Siang Hill, Singapore 069788
Les Ducs: Monday to Saturday, 12pm to 11:30pm (Bouillon lunch until 3pm, dinner from 5:30pm) Madame Claude: Tuesday to Saturday, 5:30pm to 12am
Reservations: lesducs.sg Instagram: @lesducs.sg / @madameclaude.sg
