THE PULSE OF FURA
CHRISTINA RASMUSSEN AND SASHA WIJIDESSA have created the pioneering food and drink bar founded on a philosophy of sustainability and environmental responsibility. Their latest offering, Future Food, Volume Two, is a bold new menu that pushes the boundaries of culinary innovation. It features ingredients such as invasive jellyfish, seaweed, cell-cultured meat infusions, and grasshopper croutons—all chosen for their potential to reshape the future of food in a more ethical and ecologically sound direction.
Fura, which translates to pine in Swedish, is the brainchild of founders Christina Rasmussen (left of photograph) and Sasha Wijidessa. Danish American chef Christina, who also has Swedish and Norwegian ancestry, was a chef and forager at Copenhagen’s restaurant Noma. Singaporean Sasha Wijidessa has Chinese and Sri Lankan roots, and was general manager of Operation Dagger, a Singapore bar.
FURA’s Journal of Future Food menu introduces a range of planet-friendly options such as insect proteins, cell-cultured milk and quail and coffee-free coffee. The menu consists of Eating Menu (Snack Plates, Saucy Plates, Sweet Plates) and Drinking Menu. Then there’s Ugly Delicious, a menu of fermentations – produce is fermented in house as fruit wines, aiming to highlight food waste and alternative ways to use ingredients rather than letting them go to waste. New additions include New New Yuck highlighting seaweed; 3 Crop Corn shows the benefits of crop diversification, and favourites from the Volume 1 menu such as The Worm, a savoury margarita infused with mealworms.
Left to right: A Quail Walks into a Martini; There’s a Bug in My Salad; So You Bought Happy Corn
I LOVE THE SENSE OF PLAY in the names of the food and drink items on their new menu called Future Food, Volume Two. The call for heeding the environment, climate change and dwindling produce resources is done with a sense of humour and style.
A CHAT WITH CHRISTINA RASMUSSEN AND SASHA WIJIDESSA
Here are my favourites:
A Quail Walks Into a Martini (S$25) – Gin, caramelised fennel, cultured Japanese quail, vermouth. This item from the drinkng menu showcases the use of cell-cultured meat by rooting it in a dry martini.
There’s A Bug In My Salad (S$14) – Green Loop Farm romaine, caper dessing, yeast garum, candlenut cojita. On the Eating Menu as a Snack Plate this take on a Caesar salad has the interesting option of adding grasshopper croutons ($2).
So You Bought Happy Corn (S$24) – Somma mafaldine pasta, charred Talula Hill Farm purple corn, corn espuma – This Saucy Plate on the Eating Menu highlights the benefits of crop diversification for low carbon emissions and supporting regenerative landscapes.
"We want our names to make people laugh and not be so serious. Many are rooted from album and record names, several which are on playlists run during service."
- You have a sense of humour in naming FURA food dishes such as New New Yuck, A Quail Walks Into a Martini and Make Local Tomatoes Great Again. How long does it take to come up with a new menu item and its name?
We want our names to make people laugh and not be so serious. Many are rooted from album and record names, several which are on playlists run during service. A few of them are twist on references from another menu (V1 menu was “New Yuck City”- an album from Dirty Sanchez, V2 menu is a cleaner version of the V1 drink so we went on “New New Yuck”). Same for the “So You Bought Happy Corn”, we had a drink in V1 named “So You Bought Sad Corn” in reference to the overproduction of single crop farming. I’ve changed the sad to happy because for the dish we use a pesticide free farm in Malaysia growing heirloom varieties of corn. Separately, we have a snack called “A Quail Walks Into a Bar”, it was the first non-vegan ingredient we offered on the menu so I wanted the name to reflect an unexpected but familiar beginning – hence using the pun of “ So a ____ walks into a bar”. The drink uses the same cell-based quail parfait as the snack so we paired the names.
- Your sense of whim certainly makes your new menu Journal of Future Foods, Volume Two more accessible despite the serious business of showcasing what foods could look like in the frightening future of climate change, destruction of nature and food source extinction. Do you think bugs should be consumed as food more in Singapore? How do we shift people’s mindsets?
For us it’s about intention over trend; we feel they provide a great opportunity of having added depth and versatility if done properly. Many places use them as a gimmick and it lacks intention and a story to an ingredient that deserves more credit. We incorporate them in ways that are approachable and fun, showing it can become a more available source of protein in our diet. Because insects are high in protein, using a heat application makes the most sense to extract the flavour due to a Maillard reaction, or a caramelisation of the proteins, hence why we pan fry them then add in the spice mix for the “Get the Worm” cocktail, or turn them into a garum (type of high heat ferment). For the “Pumpkin Layers”, the garum adds an intense umami richness to the charred capsicum and brings out the nuttiness of the walnuts in the mahumarra. Many times we have guests surprised when they receive a drink or dish that includes insects because of its subtle yet distinctive profile, but it is nearly always a success.
- What are your favourite local Singapore dishes?
A Thai hawker in Maxwell, we always get the pad thai extra calamansi and a cane juice with lemon.
- How do you relax after a hard day at work?
To decompress when we come home we make noodles, watch TV for an hour or so and play with our puppy before going to bed. We usually work 6 or 7 days a week, but we try hard to take at least one afternoon fully off to spend time together. It’s quite exhausting to own a business and do everything yourself.
- What advice would you give a young food student who wants to do what you are doing with Fura?
Don’t lose sight of what your goals are, things move slowly, you have to be patient. But I love having a platform that is exactly how we want it, all the tough things are worth it when you connect with some really good guests, farmers and artists who share a similar mindset. Surround yourself with good intentioned people.
FURA
74A Amoy Street, Singapore 069893,
Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 5pm to 12am.
