In a city built on constant gastronomic evolution, Chef Louis Han’s thoughtful transformation of NAE:UM stands out as a masterclass in how reinvention can deepen — not dilute — culinary identity.
Singapore’s fine dining scene has always been unforgivingly competitive, one where culinary reinvention is not just critical for market relevance but is also a survival skill. Restaurants here don’t simply open, they need to justify their existence every night. Set in this landscape is Chef Louis Han, who recently evolved NAE:UM into a new chapter.
To be clear, NAE:UM has never struggled with relevance. MICHELIN crowned it. Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants gave it a nod. Tatler fawned approvingly. Chef Han himself even picked up the MICHELIN Guide Young Chef award in 2022, the industry’s way of saying, “Congratulations, now don’t mess it up.”
He could have coasted. But this latest chapter shows that Chef Han isn’t content with staying still — not in Telok Ayer, not in 2025, and certainly not when your name is already attached to a modern Korean steakhouse (GU:UM) and a private dining atelier (HIDEAWAY).
Reinvention, in this context, is clarity of vision.
Where NAE:UM once unfolded in episodic menus — fleeting, fragrant snapshots of memory — he’s thrown that out in favour of a single storybook-style narrative arc. A proper story, with chapters. Structure. A menu that’s finally worked out its own identity crisis.
This new voice? It’s still rooted unapologetically in Korea. The flavours come from his childhood mountainside home near Seoul, from street snacks, from traditional hanok living. The old dining room hinted at rustic Korean charm; the new one goes full giwajib — the refined traditional home of Korea’s old nobility — but through the lens of someone who also has a love affair with travertine, sculptural lighting, and papered sliding doors.
But what distinguishes his approach is how he grafts contemporary technique and global sensibilities onto these roots, creating a cuisine that feels unmistakably Korean yet totally his own.
You start, for example, a chilled tomato dongchimi, where radish water kimchi has been reimagined as a bright, crystalline shot layered with seafood and tomato jelly. Korean at its bones, contemporary in its clarity. Or the toran, a yam puff inspired by the Cantonese dim sumn favourite but here filled with pork ragu and fermented black bean for a more indulgent, rich bite. Then there’s sokkori, which reimagines Korean oxtail stew into a cute little sandwich of braised oxtail and mash between crisp lavash.
The now famous memilmyeon & mandu at NAE:UM — one of Singapore’s best cold noodle courses — returns: buckwheat noodles tossed in white kimchi dressing, chives, and perilla oil, crowned with sweet mountain turnip, altogether slurp-worthy. Alongside sits a grilled morel dumpling, stuffed with rice cake and duck. Do they work together? Not particularly. Do they need to? Absolutely not, because they are just so brilliant individually.
The fish course, nobchi, is where things get serious. This is five-day dry-aged turbot with maeuntang-butter sauce, a dish anchored in Korean spicy seafood stews but here the butter-driven glossiness makes it an absolute delight. The Iberico ribeye, lovingly brushed with galbi sauce and served with perilla-layered onion, is smoky, sweet, and primal, the kind of dish that reassures you the chef still enjoys the proper lick of fire in his food.
Before dessert, you’re given hansang — Chef Han’s version of the Korean hanjeongsik multi-dish spread. A cast-iron pot of short-grain rice mixed with sesame, nori, napa cabbage, and crowned with gochujang-marinated deodeok that comes served with banchan and mushroom gomtang. It’s the closest thing on the menu to a warm embrace from your beloved granny. I wipe a tear from my eye.
Desserts stay on theme. A kiwi-brightened modern changmyeon, then daechu, a charcoal-tuille cylinder hiding jujube cream and truffle espuma (because in 2025 no dessert is complete until someone asks, “Should we add truffle?”). And finally dagwa, Korean traditional sweets that close the meal on a note of understated dignity. Even the beverage list is carefully considered to carry the same split personality of heritage and modernity: Korean gin, new-wave soju, makgeolli made in Brooklyn, small-batch rice wine, among others.
What lingers at the end isn’t the beauty of the plates or the theatre of the space, though both are evident in spades. It’s intention. Chef Louis Han has reached the point where many chefs plateau, polish their award plaques, and recalibrate their ambition toward lucrative side ventures. Instead, he’s chosen to dig deeper. To risk clarity. To declare, finally and without hesitation, that what he cooks is contemporary Korean — not because it’s trendy, but because it’s personal.
And perhaps that’s why NAE:UM works. It feels sincere in a dining scene built on posturing. Unpretentious in a genre that loves pomposity. Because this is a glimpse of one’s roots. This is a taste of home. His home.
And perhaps that’s the best kind of reinvention yet.
NAE:UM
Address 161 Telok Ayer St, Singapore 068615 (Google Maps link)
Opening Hours 6pm to 10.30pm Mondays to Wednesdays; 12pm to 3pm and 6pm to 10.30pm Thursdays to Saturdays; closed on Sundays
Website naeum.sg
Instagram @naeum.sg
Facebook naeum.sg
Reservations book here
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