If your family has one Christmas dish nobody else gets quite right, Gilmore & Damian D’Silva at National Gallery Singapore has a festive menu you’ll recognise. From 1 December 2026 to 3 January 2027, the restaurant is serving three Christmas specials taken from the recipes of Chef Damian D’Silva’s grandad, Gilmore D’Silva. Pre-orders open on 15 November 2026, so this is the week to start planning.
Grandad’s Recipes, Kept Close
The whole restaurant is built around one man. The menu is mostly heirloom Eurasian recipes, some more than 200 years old, and the remaining dishes are Chinese plates inspired by Gilmore’s home cooking.
Chef Damian’s official bio describes ‘Pop’, his paternal grandad, as a cook who whipped up Eurasian, Chinese, Malay and Indian food. Gilmore kept a personal recipe book for the more complex dishes he wanted to perfect, but he ‘stored’ most of his recipes in his head. Young Damian learnt by watching, memorising ingredients, methods and small details until he knew the recipes as well as the back of his hand. That habit carried him through two decades of restaurants, from Soul Kitchen, Immigrants, Folklore and Kin to Rempapa, which opened in December 2021.
The recognition followed. In 2024, the French dining guide La Liste gave him its Artisan & Authenticity Award, and he received the Special Recognition award at the Singapore Tourism Awards the same year. His work championing local food, along with his stints as a judge on MasterChef Singapore, earned him the nickname ‘Grandfather of Heritage Cuisine’. For a chef known as the grandfather of anything, cooking his own grandfather’s Christmas feels like the most fitting tribute of all.
Boxing Day in a Bowl
On Boxing Day, the feast’s leftovers become Debal, a spiced Eurasian stew better known as Curry Devil. Gilmore made two versions: Red Debal came first and used up the leftover meats, while White Debal followed with chicken or turkey and whatever vegetables remained.
Chef Damian is cooking the white one this year. White Debal with Baguette (S$88++) is tender chicken cooked with house-made achar (a tangy vegetable pickle) in a rempah, or spice paste, of chilli, blue ginger, shallots, candlenuts, lemongrass and turmeric, finished with vinegar and mustard seeds. The restaurant calls it brighter and slightly sweeter than the red version, though it promises a heat that “slowly builds around the chest”. The achar alone takes patience: carrots, cucumber, garlic, whole shallots and whole chillies are dried overnight before they go into the pot, and the pickling runs five to seven days.
If you only order one thing, make it this. It’s the dish with the most family story attached, and a Boxing Day leftovers stew isn’t something you’ll find on most Christmas menus in town!
A Chicken With a Head Start
Roasted Chicken (S$78++) gets the same slow treatment. The bird is brined for 12 hours in ginger flower, bay leaves, lemongrass and Bentong ginger, then rubbed under the skin with a butter of Eurasian and Southeast Asian spices so the meat stays juicy in the oven. It’s stuffed with turmeric leaves, pandan leaves, bay leaves, garlic and lemongrass before a two-hour roast.
This is the safe pick for the relative who swears they “don’t eat spicy”. It still carries the family’s aromatics without the Debal’s slow-burning chilli, which makes it the easier crowd-pleaser for a mixed table.
The Cake Gets a Brandy Bath
Sugee is semolina, and this 360g Sugee Cake (S$48++) combines it with Golden Churn butter, almond meal and diced almonds before a low, slow bake. Then comes the part that gives this piece its headline. Chef Damian brushes the cake with brandy every day for a week before serving, and according to the restaurant the alcohol dissipates and leaves the brandy’s gentle sweetness through the buttery crumb.
For takeaway, the cake arrives in a kueh box with Chantilly cream on the side. That makes it the best pick for gifting or for bringing to someone else’s party, since it travels better than a pot of curry and looks the part when you hand it over.
Plan Backwards, Order Early
The one rule that matters: every Christmas item is available by pre-order, whether you’re dining in or taking away. Everything is sold while stocks last, so anyone eyeing Christmas Eve or Christmas Day should put their order in early.
These are limited-period festive specials, available only during the December to early January run. Prices carry “++”, the Singapore shorthand for service charge and GST added on top of the listed figure, so budget a little above the menu price.
When the DANAMIC Team rounded up Christmas dining and takeaways back in 2023, the guide covered big festive feasts. This is a different kind of December meal, smaller and more personal, built around one family’s table.
🗓️ Date: 1 December 2026 to 3 January 2027 (pre-orders from 15 November 2026)
⏰ Time: Dine-in at dinner, 6pm to 10pm; takeaway 3pm to 7pm
📍 Location: Gilmore & Damian D’Silva, #01-02/03 National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew’s Road, Singapore 178957
🍽️ Menu: White Debal with Baguette S$88++, Roasted Chicken S$78++, Sugee Cake (360g) S$48++
📝 Ordering: Pre-orders for every item, dine-in and takeaway; while stocks last
📧 Enquiries: Grandad@Gilmore.sg
Plenty of us have a grandparent’s dish we’d give anything to taste again, and most of us never wrote the recipe down. Chef Damian did the remembering for his family, and from 1 December anyone can pull up a chair at Gilmore’s table. Pre-orders open on 15 November, so check Gilmore & Damian D’Silva’s website at Gilmore.sg or its Instagram, @gilmore.sg, to book your dinner or lock in a takeaway, and get that brandy-soaked Sugee Cake on your Christmas table!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Gilmore & Damian D’Silva.
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