Gochujang bulgogi sauce brushed onto crispy guanciale chips, then scattered over amatriciana, sounds like a dare. At Osteria Da Su, it’s one of the headline pastas. The casual Italian osteria opens at 163 Telok Ayer Street on Friday, 23 October 2026, with sharing plates from S$14++.
That puts a chef-driven Italian meal on Telok Ayer Street, next to NAE:UM, at a price where you don’t need a promotion or a birthday to justify booking. It’s the newest restaurant from NAE:UM Group and sits right next door to NAE:UM, the group’s contemporary Korean fine-dining restaurant. The group’s other sibling is the modern Korean steakhouse GU:UM, which makes an Italian place its most unexpected move yet.
From La Cucina to Bergamo
Running the kitchen is Korea-born Chef Suji Park, who has spent the better part of 20 years cooking Italian food in Korea and Italy. Growing up, she noticed that “a lot of ingredients used in Italian cuisine were similar to Korean cuisine”. That curiosity landed her a job at La Cucina, one of Korea’s first-generation Italian restaurants, where she stayed four years.
In 2013 she left for Italy to learn the cuisine at its source, and she ended up staying nearly a decade. She cooked in bistros, osterias and trattorias across Bergamo, Milan and Sicily. She spent three years at the three-Michelin-starred Da Vittorio in Bergamo and two more at Claudio Sadler’s Milan trattoria. Somewhere along the way she became fluent in Italian. If you chat with her by the pass, she may well answer in Italian, since that’s her second language rather than English.
She went to Italy hunting for the “one correct answer” to Italian cooking. What she found instead was that every region bends the rules its own way, so she treats foundations as the fixed point and lets creativity follow. “If I focus on the fundamentals, the creativity will come after the basics and foundations,” she says. In 2022 she returned to Seoul to join the opening team of Massimo Bottura’s Gucci Osteria, where some of her dishes became signatures on the menu.
A Name That Works Twice
The name is a neat bit of bilingual wordplay. In Italian, da means “from”, so Osteria Da Su reads as “an osteria from Su”. In Korean, 다수 (da su) means “many people”. Put together, it’s a place made by one cook for a crowd, which is roughly what Italian osterias were in the first place: humble neighbourhood joints where locals dropped in to eat without fuss.
The backstory explains how a Seoul-based chef ended up on Telok Ayer Street. Park and NAE:UM’s Chef Founder Louis Han met as students at Korea Tourism College and have been close friends for 16 years. When Park was weighing a move to Australia or Singapore, Han spotted that the unit next to NAE:UM was up for lease in June 2026. A few conversations later, the two friends decided to open a restaurant together.
The restaurant frames that friendship through jeong, the Korean idea of a deep bond built through shared experience and shown through care and loyalty. It’s a sweeter origin story than most new openings get. Park sums up how personal the project is in one line: “Osteria Da Su is me and I am Osteria Da Su.”
What to Order First
The menu runs in the traditional osteria order, from aperitivi through antipasti, primi and secondi to dolci. It spans about 25 à la carte dishes built for sharing, with handmade pasta at the centre. The Korean touches come in as accents on classic Italian recipes, so this is a far cry from kimchi carbonara.
The plate to book a table for is the Spaghetti alle Vongole (S$28++), Park’s favourite pasta. The stock comes from Asari clams, the shells are removed before serving, and Korean water parsley called minari, a classic partner for clams in Korea, replaces Italian parsley. It’s the clearest example of the whole idea: an Italian dish that stays Italian, with one swap a Korean diner would instantly recognise.
Second pick is the Tortelli di Galbi Jjim (S$30++). The handmade tortelli and sage butter stay faithful to the Italian recipe, but the filling is dwaeji galbi jjim, Korean braised pork. Save room for the Dalgona Tiramisu (S$14++), a classic mascarpone-and-savoiardi tiramisu topped with shards of housemade dalgona, the honeycomb toffee that half the internet tried to carve shapes out of in 2021.
Spice fans should look at the Korean Pepper Fritto (S$14++), a fried gochu chilli stuffed with prawn and ricotta. It comes with doenjang mayonnaise and balsamic soy, and it’s the sort of plate that disappears in two rounds of chopsticks (or forks). The Farfalle all’Amatriciana (S$24++) with those gochujang-glazed guanciale chips is the one most likely to end up on your feed.
Korean-led Italian cooking is having a moment in Singapore. Noci Pasta Bar, opened in 2025 by Korean food and beverage group Goldmoon, bills itself as the city’s first Korean pasta bar. Osteria Da Su comes at it from a different angle: a chef with a decade in Italian kitchens, cooking classic dishes with a light Korean accent. If Scarpetta won you over, this is a natural next stop.
Arches, Terracotta and Holiday Snaps
The room mixes Italian osteria warmth (soft arches, terracotta-toned floors, warm wood and olive green) with a cleaner Korean minimalism. You walk past the open kitchen on the way in, so a quick ciao to the chef is pretty much part of the welcome.
According to the restaurant, there are 34 seats: eight at the kitchen counter, 16 on banquettes and ten in a raised lounge area that suits small group dinners. The nicest touch is on the walls, where framed photos Park took during her years in Italy hang throughout the room. Pick the counter seats if you want to watch the pasta being plated, or the lounge if your group chat can’t keep its voices down.
🗓️ Date: Opens Friday, 23 October 2026
⏰ Time: From 16 November, Monday to Saturday, same lunch and dinner hours.
📍 Location: Osteria Da Su, 163 Telok Ayer Street, Singapore 068616
💰 Prices: Dishes from S$14++
🍝 Must-try: Spaghetti alle Vongole (S$28++), Tortelli di Galbi Jjim (S$30++), Dalgona Tiramisu (S$14++)
🪑 Seats: 34, including eight at the kitchen counter
A chef who trained at a three-Michelin-starred kitchen now cooks vongole and tiramisu on Telok Ayer Street at prices meant for a casual weeknight. That’s a rare combination on Telok Ayer Street, and opening week runs on dinner service only, so seats are likely to go fast. Reservations are made via the reservations link (http://bit.ly/dasu) listed in the fact sheet. Grab a friend you’ve known for years and book a table, jeong included!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Osteria Da Su.
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