SINGAPORE – Pity the chef trying to craft a tasting menu. The snacks have to whet the diner’s appetite. Starters and seafood courses have to be artful and inventive. Desserts have to stun.

So many times, I have had meals which sag in the middle. When the main course just seems perfunctory. Like the kitchen ran out of steam.

That has been changing. No longer do main courses sag. Chefs are using pigeon, duck and other birds. Some brave ones serve veal sweetbreads or secondary cuts of beef such as tri-tip.

Sugarra, the new Spanish fine-dining restaurant that just opened at Resorts World Sentosa, serves vintage Spanish beef, from cows that are given time – eight or more years – to develop flavour, instead of being slaughtered when they are about 18 months old.

The Txuleta at the 68-seat restaurant is from cattle that is a cross between the Cachena and Holstein Friesian breeds. It comes from Galicia, which is also where another famous type of vintage beef, Rubia Gallega, is from.

This rib steak, aged a further 45 days in the restaurant, needs no embellishment, although charcoal grilling adds to its considerable allure. It is really the funk – of mushrooms and whiffs of blue cheese – that gets me excited. These flavours, and the smokiness, come in waves.

It has been a long time since I have had such excellent beef. The baby gem salad served alongside is the perfect accompaniment – cold and crisp, and every leaf in the whole head is brushed with just enough dressing.

To have that course, the diner will have to splurge on the nine-course Experience menu, priced at $288 a person.

Other highlights include a modern take of the Spanish tortilla, the potato omelette. In the hands of chefs Aitor Jeronimo Orive, 42, and Aitor Gonzalez, 45, the Tortilla de Patatas is both earthy and ethereal. Confit potatoes serve as the foundation, with sabayon to add richness and potato espuma as a finishing touch.

Arroz de Rabo de Buey is pure comfort food and not out of place in a fine-dining restaurant. Creamy Bomba rice is mixed with braised oxtail, with further earthiness from mushrooms. Sure, the quail egg and truffle topping are good to have, but not strictly necessary.

Suckling Pork Belly is the main course for the Discovery menu, priced at $148 a person for four courses and $198 a person for six courses.

Like many restaurants, this one has a good bread game. I wonder if I will have a better milk bun in 2025.

Where: Sugarra, Level 1 Hotel Michael...