Roberto Galbiati: The Milanese Chef Who Finally Dropped Anchor in Singapore

Roberto Galbiati could have opened a restaurant in Milan.

His father wanted him to.

Instead, he went to sea.

The Milan-born chef behind Acqua e Farina spent part of his early career cooking aboard cruise ships and yachts, travelling through different parts of the world before eventually finding his way to Asia.

And somewhere along that journey, Singapore stopped being another destination.

It became home.

Today, Galbiati is one of the chef-owners behind Acqua e Farina, the Italian restaurant that began at The Rail Mall and later expanded to Keong Saik Road.

But before there was a restaurant, there was a young chef who apparently had very little interest in staying put.

Milan Gave Him the Foundation

Galbiati comes from Milan in northern Italy.

His father was a butcher, placing food and ingredients close to family life from the beginning.

He also trained in what he has described as strict Italian kitchens, where technique and discipline formed the basis of his professional education.

His father encouraged him to open a restaurant in Milan.

It would have been the straightforward route.

Galbiati chose something else.

He wanted to travel.

So rather than settling immediately into restaurant ownership, he took jobs aboard cruise ships and yachts.

The kitchen became his way of seeing the world.

Then Singapore Happened

While working around Asia, Galbiati met the Singaporean woman who would later become his wife.

The travelling chef eventually stopped travelling.

He settled in Singapore, where the couple would raise their son.

Professionally, he joined Da Paolo, becoming part of Singapore's Italian restaurant scene.

But Galbiati still had the ambition to build something of his own.

One particular Singapore feature had already caught his attention:

the shophouse.

When he first arrived, Galbiati was struck by Singapore's historic shophouses and imagined himself eventually running a restaurant inside one.

That dream would take quite a long time to happen.

First came The Rail Mall.

Galbiati Wasn't Supposed to Become a Restaurant

In 2004, Galbiati opened his first solo business at The Rail Mall.

He called it Galbiati Gourmet Deli.

The original idea was not a conventional restaurant.

It was a casual Italian takeaway operation, and The Rail Mall offered something especially useful to a new independent business: rent that was more manageable than many central Singapore locations.

Galbiati kept a few tables for customers who wanted to eat there.

Then he noticed something.

People liked sitting down.

So he added another table.

Then another.

One of the takeaway refrigerators disappeared to create more room.

More tables followed.

Eventually, Galbiati looked around and realised his takeaway shop had quietly turned itself into a restaurant.

Sometimes a restaurant begins with a grand business plan.

Sometimes customers simply refuse to leave.

The Neighbourhood Grew Up With Him

The Rail Mall restaurant developed an unusually loyal following.

Galbiati remembers children visiting for cake or Coke while their parents came for dinner.

Years passed.

Those children grew up.

Some got married.

Some moved overseas.

And when they returned to Singapore, Galbiati says they would still come back to the restaurant.

That gives his story a different kind of significance.

Restaurants are usually discussed in terms of openings, reviews and awards.

Longevity is quieter.

A neighbourhood restaurant becomes part of people's routines before anyone notices that two decades have passed.

By 2025, the business at The Rail Mall had survived for roughly 20 years.

For a restaurant in Singapore, that is not a trivial achievement.

From Takeaway to Acqua e Farina

Eventually, Galbiati decided the restaurant needed to evolve again.

The takeaway mentality had been built around being good and affordable.

He wanted to move towards something more substantial, with better ingredients, stronger service and a fuller Italian restaurant experience.

In 2016, the Rail Mall restaurant became Acqua e Farina.

The name means water and flour in Italian.

It reflects the essential ingredients behind bread, pasta and pizza, but it also fits Galbiati's broader attitude toward food.

Start with the basics.

Do them properly.

Then build from there.

Milan Still Shows Up on the Plate

Galbiati's northern Italian background continues to shape the restaurant.

Acqua e Farina deliberately brings together cooking from both northern and southern Italy, and Galbiati represents the northern side of that equation.

Northern Italian food generally leans more heavily towards ingredients and techniques associated with cooler regions: rice, butter, richer sauces and heartier preparations.

For Galbiati, risotto is therefore more than simply another menu item.

It belongs to the culinary vocabulary he grew up around.

One of Acqua e Farina's more distinctive dishes combines uni and bottarga with risotto, taking an ingredient more commonly associated with southern Italian pasta and moving it into a northern rice preparation.

The result is not traditional in the strictest sense.

The technique underneath it remains very traditional.

His Mother's Pasta Never Really Left

Another dish reveals something even more personal.

Acqua e Farina has served a cocoa tagliatelle with prawn, mushroom and nduja.

The idea partly comes from Galbiati's memories of his mother buying flavoured pastas when he was young.

He remembers varieties made with ingredients such as cocoa, red wine, sage and saffron, sometimes served simply with butter and sage.

Years later, that memory found its way into a Singapore restaurant.

The cocoa pasta became the northern element.

Prawn and nduja brought in southern Italian flavours.

A childhood food memory became something new.

That may be one of the more interesting forms of authenticity.

Not reproducing the past exactly.

Remembering it well enough to do something with it.

He Calls Himself Old-School

Galbiati has described the restaurant's approach as old-school.

The cooking remains grounded in traditional Italian methods.

Ingredients matter.

Time matters.

The kitchen is not built around shortcuts simply because they would make service easier.

But old-school does not necessarily mean stiff.

Acqua e Farina is designed as a trattoria.

Casual.

Comfortable.

Family-friendly.

The restaurant's official philosophy emphasises simplicity, tradition and quality rather than ceremony.

That balance is important.

Galbiati spent his early career in disciplined kitchens.

The restaurant he eventually built does not require diners to feel disciplined while eating there.

Twenty Years Comes Down to Hard Work

When CNA asked Galbiati what had allowed the restaurant to survive for two decades, the answer was not particularly glamorous.

Hard work.

That sounds almost disappointingly simple.

But restaurant longevity is rarely built around one brilliant idea.

The doors need to open.

The ingredients need to arrive.

The food needs to remain consistent.

Customers need to feel welcome.

Bills need to be paid.

And then the entire process starts again tomorrow.

Twenty years is what happens when enough tomorrows go correctly.

Then the Shophouse Finally Arrived

Galbiati never forgot the Singapore shophouses that had fascinated him when he first arrived.

In 2024, roughly two decades after opening his Rail Mall business, Acqua e Farina opened a second location on Keong Saik Road.

This time, Galbiati finally had his shophouse.

The new restaurant carried the same northern-and-southern Italian identity into a much more central part of Singapore.

It was not a replacement for the Rail Mall restaurant.

It was an expansion of something that had already survived long enough to prove itself.

The takeaway shop had become a neighbourhood restaurant.

The neighbourhood restaurant had become two restaurants.

And the chef who once avoided settling down had become one of the more established Italian restaurateurs in Singapore.

Roberto Galbiati Travelled the World to Find Somewhere to Stay

Galbiati began as the son of a butcher in Milan.

He trained in Italian kitchens.

His father encouraged him to open a restaurant.

Instead, he took to the sea.

Cruise ships.

Yachts.

Asia.

Singapore.

Then something changed.

He met his wife.

He raised a family.

He opened a takeaway shop.

Customers turned it into a restaurant.

Twenty years passed.

And eventually, the shophouse he had imagined when he first arrived in Singapore became real.

Roberto Galbiati spent the early part of his career travelling because he did not want to stay in one place.

Perhaps the most interesting part of his story is that Singapore eventually gave him a reason to stop.