This Singapore Bar Shows Diners What Food Will Look Like in the Future

From gas protein and bean-free coffee to cultured quail and upcycled kombucha, Fura is opening up the future of food to Singaporeans.

One of the hottest additions to the Asia’s 50 Best Bars list last year, the cult bar is putting sustainability at the heart of its operations and championing an inventive, future-facing menu.

Both a cocktail bar and dining destination, Singapore’s Fura has made a big splash since opening in October 2023, with its menu labelled as a Journal of Future Food. The first edition, for example, featured dishes like XOXO, Tempe, featuring mushroom XO sauce, pomelo, and a chimichurri made from Solein, the gas protein by Solar Foods.

Meanwhile, one of the cocktails on offer was called Got Milk?, a combination of Empirical Soka, pandan, honeydew, and kombucha made from Very Dairy, the animal-free milk commercialised by precision fermentation startup Perfect Day (which has since been discontinued).

Now, co-owners Christina Rasmussen and Sasha Wijidessa are embarking on the next step in Fura’s journey, with the second volume of its future food menu. Among the highlights are Vow‘s cultured quail (and its residual ‘tallow’), a novel take on the Dirty Banana cocktail with Prefer’s beanless coffee, and a triple-corn cocktail highlighting the benefits of crop diversification.

“We want to change the way we eat and drink by giving a glimpse of what our diet could look like in the future due to climate change,” Rasmussen, previously the head forager at Copenhagen’s world-renowned restaurant Noma, tells Green Queen.

Cultured quail walks into Fura

One of several establishments using Australian company Vow’s cultivated meat in the city-state, Fura takes things a step further, using not just the Japanese quail parfait, it is also making use of the startup’s fat byproduct.

A Quail Walks Into a Bar is the eatery’s first dish using the cultured quail, which is sold under the Forged brand and was approved for sale in Singapore last year. “The Japanese quail has a buttery, smooth parfait texture, which is piped and torched on top of a hazelnut biscuit, garnished with dill cream and acidic malt apple gel to cut the richness,” describes Rasmussen.

“We’re then also using a byproduct of making the quail cells from Forged as our ‘butter’ for the Bread & Butter(ish). This is formed into a candle, which is lit just before serving and topped with pink peppercorn, garlic and Maldon salt,” she says. “The melted result serves as a dip for the black garlic bread, sweetened with brown bananas.”

This innovation doesn’t stop at the food – the cultured quail has also made onto Fura’s cocktail menu. “A Quail Walks Into a Martini showcases the use of cell-cultured meat by rooting it in a familiar drink, a dry martini,” she says. “The quail is infused into gin and dry vermouth; a caramelised fennel puree is then sous vide and fat-washed with gin to complete the rich and dry drink.”

Fura uses this technique often to integrate less familiar ingredients into the menu “By connecting them to something familiar, our guests will recognise and feel comfortable ordering [them],” says Rasmussen.

In addition, Singaporean startup Prefer’s bean-free coffee – made by fermenting waste bread, soy milk pulp and spent brewer’s grain – appears in two menu items. It’s part of the New Age Sando, which combines the coffee alternative with an apricot kernel ice cream, raspberry crisps, and marigold.

Plus, in Fura’s take on a Dirty Banana, the coffee is replaced with Prefer’s version, which is mixed with Empirical Ayuuk, dates, cardamom, and lacto banana cream.

Turning future food from ‘intimidating’ to something ‘approachable’

Apart from future food startups, Fura works with a range of local businesses to source its ingredients, including GreenLoop Farms, Mother Dough and Bewilder.

These make it onto the menu in innovative ways too. Take the 3 Crop Corn cocktail, for instance, which is aimed at promoting crop diversification as a strategy for lowering emissions and supporting regenerative landscapes.

“The name refers to a three-crop system with a small grain (represented by the sorghum grain from the Empirical Soka), summer legume (showcased in corn silk vermouth), and cover crop (a garnish of mustard frills from GreenLoopFarms),” explains Rasmussen.

Another aspect of Fura’s sustainability is waste reduction. Its menu has an Ugly Delicious section to include ‘wonky’ fruits and vegetables that don’t make it in retail stores and would otherwise be thrown away. The eatery ferments these to make fruit wines and kombucha.

“We make all of our kombuchas in-house. We have three different flavours: #01 is a blackberry, fennel and black tea kombucha, #02 is a raspberry, pineapple and milk kombucha, and #03 is a grapefruit, coconut and green tea kombucha,” says Rasmussen.

“The milk kombucha is the byproduct from one of our old cocktails, where the ‘whey’ was in excess and we used it to help soften the sharpness of acidity in our kombucha.”

Aside from food, Fura avoids using cling film and works with reusable piping bags, and makes paper mâché with used receipts, which are then repurposed as product cards for their retail section. These types of measures are what helped the establishment achieve the Sustainable Bar Award by Asia’s 50 Best last year.

“Everything on our food and drinks menus highlights ingredients that are prevalent, invasive or in abundance due to the imbalance of our ecosystem. Our guiding principle is to look for ingredients that have low carbon emissions,” says Rasmussen.

“We understand it can be intimidating for people to live in a way that helps work towards a more sustainable future, so we want to make that more approachable by showing people small steps they can take through food and drink.”