The world’s first Audemars Piguet café makes its most ambitious move yet — inviting one of Singapore’s most decorated pastry chefs to the table.
Some collaborations make sense on paper. This one makes sense on a deeper level — the kind that you only recognise when you understand what both parties are actually about.
AP Café Singapore, the world’s first culinary outpost of the legendary Swiss watchmaker, has announced its inaugural chef partnership: a limited-edition dessert series created with Makoto Arami, the Japanese pastry virtuoso behind Ami Patisserie. The collection, titled A Dialogue of Craftsmanship and Time, is on until 30 June 2026 — and it may be the most quietly compelling luxury experience in Singapore right now.
The Setting
Housed within the historic Bar and Billiard Room at Raffles Hotel Singapore, AP Café is the first of its kind globally. Its interiors — vaulted ceilings, sleek metal and marble accents — create an ambience that is both intimate and inviting. Inaugurated in 2025, its menu reinterprets classic Swiss dishes through a distinctly local lens, each creation echoing the creativity, precision, and meticulous innovation that define Audemars Piguet’s watchmaking.
It is, in short, a room that takes itself seriously without taking itself too seriously, which is precisely the right environment for what Arami has created inside it.
The Chef
Third generation to a family with a confectionery business traceable to 1935, Makoto Arami has been immersed in the art of crafting sweets since childhood. While his grandfather specialised in wagashi — traditional Japanese confections — his father evolved the family business to serve yogashi: Western-style sweets, crafted from Japanese ingredients and presented with artistry.
This is not a backstory deployed for charm. It is the actual operating system behind everything Arami makes.
From the family business, he went on to study at the prestigious Tsuji Culinary Institute in Tokyo, followed by a year-long stage in Lyon, France. He then honed his craft at Michelin two-starred Beige Alain Ducasse in Ginza, before becoming the first pastry chef for Restaurant Ryuzu, a Michelin two-starred progressive French restaurant in Roppongi. He trained at Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York, before joining the opening team for its Tokyo outpost, and later served as Pastry Chef at Restaurant Lamberie in Kyoto.
In 2017, at 28 years of age, he became the Executive Pastry Chef of Michelin one-starred Beni in Singapore. He stayed, eventually striking out on his own. AMI — derived from his name, Arami — translates to “friend” in French. In Japanese, it also means “blossoming in Asia.” Both meanings apply.
In 2021, Arami launched Ami Patisserie, finally creating a platform to fully express his unique pastry style. In 2025, he was named Pastry Talent of the Year by La Liste. The award was recognition. The work had always spoken.
The Philosophy
What makes the AP Café partnership feel inevitable rather than engineered is the shared grammar between haute horology and fine patisserie. Both are disciplines of the invisible — where the hours of invisible labour behind a finished object are precisely what give it meaning.
“Both disciplines are grounded by craft and made in precision. In watchmaking, every component must align flawlessly for the mechanism to function. Similarly, pastry demands exacting technique — each step, measurement, and detail must be executed with care. It’s this shared pursuit of perfection that connects the two worlds,” says Arami.
He’s not reaching for the metaphor. He’s lived it.
The Collection
The anchor of the collaboration is Takumi Sei — a plated dessert whose name alone is a declaration. Inspired by the Japanese concepts of takumi (craftsmanship) and sei (precision), it is built around matcha, azuki, and raspberry: a structured composition of flavour and texture designed as much to be considered as consumed.
“Matcha is a defining element of Japanese culture, and its pairing with azuki is both classic and deeply rooted in tradition. By incorporating raspberry, we introduce a refreshing acidity and a subtle European touch, elevating the flavour profile while maintaining balance and harmony,” Arami explains.
East meeting West — but not as a gesture. As a considered decision, ingredient by ingredient.
Accompanying it is a Signature Mini Choux Assortment — three pieces that reward the kind of attention most desserts never ask for. The Berries Pistachio Choux opens with vanilla kirsch cream, followed by the brightness of raspberry and the gentle crunch of pistachio. The Uji Matcha Kinako Choux is more meditative — its matcha depth softened by Hokkaido kinako and white chocolate. The Smoked Caramel Coffee Choux is the assertive close: house-blend coffee cream, a molten caramel centre, and hazelnut rounding out each bite.
The beverage programme — single-origin coffees, Japanese tea blends, and seasonal infusions developed specifically for AP Café — extends the narrative further, linking extraction methods and brewing techniques to the collection’s broader theme of time and control. Nothing here is incidental. That is, of course, the point.
Why This Matters
This limited-edition collection marks AP Café’s first-ever partnership with a chef — a significant milestone for a space that has always positioned itself as a cultural extension of Audemars Piguet’s values, not merely a branded café. The choice of Arami for that debut says something deliberate: this is a house that recognises mastery when it sees it, regardless of what form it takes.
The collaboration serves to reflect AP Café’s positioning as a physical expression of the Audemars Piguet brand beyond its watchmaking roots in Le Brassus — translating the Swiss maison’s values of craft and precision into a different sensory format entirely.
A great watch and a great pastry are, at their core, the same act of faith — that invisible effort, applied with integrity over time, produces something worth pausing for.
In Singapore right now, that argument has a very good address.
A Dialogue of Craftsmanship and Time runs at AP Café Singapore until 30 June 2026. AP Café is located within AP House Singapore at Raffles Hotel Singapore, 1 Beach Road. Reserve your seat here.
