Raw was opened in 2014 by Taiwanese born chef André Chiang, who owned the second-best restaurant Restaurant André in Singapore. He was also the former head chef of the three Michelin star restaurant Le Jardin des Sense in France. Since 2014, Raw has become one of the hottest restaurants in Taipei and is ranked №36 from the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2020. The restaurant is famous of its fascinating interiors and innovative tasting menus.
In Spring 2021, Raw offers tasting menu priced at NTD2980+10% tip(around $100 usd) and they are open for lunch and dinner from Wednesday to Sunday. The restaurant also offers vegetarian tasting menu alone with their wine pairing and tea pairing selections. Considered it as a 2 star Michelin restaurant, the price is reasonable for the quality of food and services.
RAW is located in Zhongshan District in Taipei. The restaurant offers a stunning interior and provides a sculpted bar made by Taiwanese pine. The lighting provides a warm environment and every seat has its own pull out drawer filled with utensils. The services was stunning and was perfect at RAW. The waiters explained each dishes to us and my water cup was full throughout the whole time.
My first dish was called the capsule of Black Forest. The chocolate ball was filled with black cherry juice, black olive, and salt pickled sakura. The chocolate instantly melted and the flavor exploded in my mouth.
The second dish is Kombu Tartine . The ingredients are scallop, lemon conflict, and wild flowers. This starter has a taste of ocean and it refreshes your taste so that we are ready for the meal.
I really want to give a note to the bread. The bread was served with a butter spread sprinkled with some coco powder and dried berries. The bread was still hot when it was served and it matched perfectly with the spread.
The third dish is Uni-peanut Butter Cappellini. The ingredients are Uni, Pecan, peanut, and green pepper. The flavor of Uni and peanut goes very well with each other and it provides a rich texture for the dish.
The forth dish is the Pop corn trio. The ingredients are duck fat corn salsa, coffee corn veloute, and spring pea corn. The corn was sliced into very thin slices and the Gnocchi under the sliced corn absorbed the taste of the corn. The dish was very tasty.
The fifth dish is the Sayori Roulades. The ingredients are lined sayori, burnt miso, and buckwheat chip. I am not a huge fan of fishes that has bright skin because of the gamey taste. However, the seasoning of this dish covered the gamey taste and the bamboo gives the dish a crunchy texture.
The sixth dish is Abalone Risotto. The ingredients are cured seaweed, black abalone, spring bamboo and avruge. Abalone is an expensive ingredient in Chinese dishes and the taste of abalone is very chewy and flavorful.
The seventh dish is Anaori Beef Rice. The ingredients are anaori pot, tri-tips, hinoki, and anomori rice. I love Waygu beef because it is very tender and the flavor of the beef is very strong. The beef and rice goes very well with each other. I think this dish is such a comfort food for me. The vegetarian version uses plant pork and mushroom as a substitute of beef.
The first dessert is Brie de Meaux. The ingredients are black truffle, tuba, sea salt, brie and Mille-crepe. I am a huge fan of crepe so this is probably my favorite dish of the day. The crepe was balanced with truffle and sea salt. Writing this review made me really want to visit RAW again.
The second dessert is Dark Praline. The ingredients are black coffee, black chocolate, praline, and black sesame oil. Chef Andrea loves Snickers candy bars when he was young so he recreated the taste of Snickers in this dessert. The mousse has a taste of Toffee Candy and the dark chocolate cookie tasted like the cookie inside of Snickers.
We ordered an extra dessert called the Peach-Pion Rosace. The ingredients are white peach, raspberry, Pione grape, and bergamot. The grapes were sliced into very thin pieces, covering white peach flavor moose. This is my least favorite dish of the day because the moose tasted like artificial flavor.
Our last dish of the day is Charcoal Financier. The financier was crispy in the outside but soft in the inside wish a charcoal taste.
Service: The service was very welcoming at RAW and the server explained each dishes to us.
Cleanliness: There are new sets of tableware for each dishes and the waiters made sure that our table was clean the whole time.
Overall:
RAW established gastrodiplomacy with mixing Taiwanese local ingredient into western style of cooking. People are able to get food that is localized and fresh.
This is a form of soft power because a lot of foreign eaters traveled all the way to Taipei just to try RAW (before Covid). They are able to experience Taiwanese culture and local ingredients. We often mention that food is able to represent a culture and Taiwan is famous of its street food. Chef André incorporates many Taiwanese street food aspects in the dishes such as a little pop corn in the popcorn trio dish. It is a type of Taiwanese traditional pop corn.
RAW has become a restaurant that I would like to visit each season and I cannot wait to meet Chef André in person one day.