what could beat an excellent plate of pasta after a delightful couple massage therapy at the retreat (also situated at the changi village hotel)?

To celebrate our 1st year being together, me and my boyfriend decided to continue the magical night with dinner at La Cantina which was just a stone's throw away from the couple's suite. With a excellent view to boot and the dimming orange tone of the skies overhead. It certainly was an enchanting experience.

Few suggestions though that could have made the experience better. Perhaps they should try to continue their venetian decoration to the 8th level balconies since sitting on white plastic chairs wasn't at all venetian in feeling. Perhaps they shoul install a few overhead fans/ coolers; though i much appreciated the gust of seabreeze, my dining companion a.k.a boyfriend was having a sweaty affair towards the end of the meal. *gulps* Last of all, they should choose a better housepour wine. The wine they provided lacked depth and was void of any characteristics. Even Peter Lehman could have done a better job at a much cheaper price too... *grunts*

The food on the other hand was excellent. No complaints coming from the both of us as we tucked into our plates of steaming glory. It was the linguine al granchio (crabmeat linguine) for me and the seafood risotto (something al fruitti..can't quite recall it now, pardon me...) the crabmeat was succulent and went really well with the creamy tomato sauce. In general, rather generous servings of ingredients for both dishes. Will definitely be back again if i want my good quality pasta!

It's a great place to have a romantic dinner with your loved ones in this lovely little restaurant atop Changi Village hotel...

Seating and ambience wise u can choose between the indoor air-con italian designed area or outdoor al fresco balcony seating.. i've sat in both n i tink both's great ... e al freso balcony seats have great views of e sea n it's good if u wana catch e sunset while dining.. but when it gets dark there's pretty much nothing to see so u might get all hot n humid in e spore weather.. n oh e tables r pretty closely spaced... indoor is pretty nice so advise is if u r having an early dinner sit al fresco to enjoy e view while if it's a late dinner juz dine indoor n enjoy e decor!

Food wise i LOVEEEEEEEEEE e linguine al granchio or crabmeat linguine in creamy tomato sauce.. this is a great dish n it's soooooooo yummy that i became a regular at la cantina! u can do it aglio olio as well (gona request) but e creamy version is e best! it's not too tomato-ey n it's super addictive!!! e guy even brought out e can of crabmeat that they used to show us n it's not cheap... abt $60/can so e price tag of $21.90 is quite worth it!

i've tried many of e other dishes whether izzit pizza pasta or main course ... all's quite decent but e crabmeat linguine rocks!

(8 - juz for the creamy tomato crabmeat linguine)

I went to Cantina on 8 Jun08 for dinner and was seated at the Alfesco area and was really pleased with the outdoor scenery. The view of the sea was very calming and I saw exotic birds like parrots and hornbills (yes, HORNBILLS) flying among the trees. It was really refreshing to see wildlife like these in Singapore.

Ok, food. Overall, I’ll rate Cantina above average. We had the following:

Starter: Anti-pasto Platter to share between BF and I.
Personally, This was a very average dish, with the grilled and fresh garden greens looking old and tired. There was Parma ham, salami, as well as 3 different kinds of cheeses.

2nd starter: Creamy Linguine Al Granchio, also to share.
This is quite delicious indeed, although the best I have tasted so far was at Valentino’s (Bukit Timah). The flavor was not as intense as the one I had at Valentino’s, but overall, It was still a tasty pasta dish with generous portions of crab meat.

Main Course: Lamb Shank (medium rare)
When it was first presented to us, the lamb was well-done instead of medium rare, and I really DISLIKE eating well-done meat. So we sent it back to the kitchen. The service staff was very nice about it and after 10 minutes, we were being served a fresh serving of Lamb shank and the 2nd time round, the lamb was done perfectly!
The lamb was fresh, thus, there wasn’t any hint of the usual muskiness of lamb and the roasted vegetables were sweet and crispy on the outside.

In addition, we also order half a bottle of white wine and a full bottle of Italian red from Borolo, which was excellent.

Thus, without the wine, I’m sure the bill would be more reasonable. Alcohol just kinda blew everything up.

I’ll love to go back again to enjoy the sea view, the birds and the food!

My then BF, now husband, introduced me to this lovely hidden away Italian restaurant back in Feb 2007. My favourite kind of food is Italian food, and I'm always on the prowl for good affordable Italian food, both in S'pore and abroad. I used 2b a fan of Pasta Fresca de Salvatore back when authentic italian food was a rarity in S'pore. Unfortunately they opened up too many branches, and started cutting down on food quality to keep afloat. For a few years I've been looking for a replacement fav Italien restaurant, and just as I was giving up, I found La Cantina.

La Cantina is located on the 8th floor of the quiet Changi Village Hotel. Decor is Hellenistic al la Venetian Palace with a ceiling fresco, and if u don't look too closely is very nice and, well, Venetian. I prefer to dine Al fresco though, cos they have a relatively quiet, breezy balcony overlooking Changi Beach, romantica....

Menu is nothing too fancy, offering the regular Italian fare.
There's been so many over-priced over-hyped fancy Western eateries in S'pore lately, frankly, I'm getting a little sick of it all. They're usually really nicely decorated that u expect a lot more from the food. At the end of the meal u feel u r paying more for the ambience and decor than for good food. Well La Cantina is not one of them. Food there is straightforward, hearty, with no fancy presentations or funny shaped bowls/ plates to distract u from the paltry quantity they've served up.

My husband and I usually start off the meal with the creamy but light mushroom soup ($6.50). The complimentary herbed foccacia bread that comes with the soup is just heavenly. The bread is always served freshly baked and piping hot, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside...the only complaint I have is that 1 small piece per person is just not enough. I also like the tomato-based seafood soup, with a fresh, appetisingly tangy flavour bursting with an assortment of seafoods. However $11.90 is a bit pricey for a soup, so I'll still go for the mushroom soup. We usually share an appetiser. The one we enjoy most is clam in white wine sauce. I don't think u'll supposed to drink the sauce up like soup, but ahem, my husband and i kinda did.

For main course, I usually order the creamy Linguine Al Granchio ($21.90), ie Linguine (cooked perfectly al dente) with juicy crab meat. My husband likes the Gnocchi al Formaggi ($18.90), ie potato dumplings in 4 cheese suace. This dish is a bit too heavy 4 me. Gnocchi is already a very heavy pasta, plus topped with 4 cheese sauce...it taste sinfully good though, and it comes in a reasonable portion so u don't get sick trying to finish it. There's also a good selection of pizzas to choose from.

We are always so full after main course that we never got to try the desserts. Hopefully 1 day we'll get to it.

Because of our frequent patronage, the staff recognises us and r always very friendly and obliging 2 us. When we 1st started going to La Cantina it was little known and usually quite empty. However word has been spread around and it's rather popular with the Easterners these days, esp weekends, so do call in advance to reserve. I called to reserve a table for my birthday early this year, which fell on a Monday, and was told it's not open on Mondays, though the website still says it's open everyday...go figure.

In conclusion, this is no Il Lido or Garibaldi, but it offers a simple affordable reliable hearty Italian meal. Great for bf trying to romance their gals!

I'm thinking that this place could probably be just the poorer cousin to San Marco if not for the fact that Cantina (#08/09-02, Changi Village Hotel, 1 Netheravon Road ) dwells in one of the most remote of locations and the service here is quite spotty. I'm honestly quite taken in by how the restaurant has made it's physical placement at the roof top of a surprisingly pleasant Changi Village hotel and despite that being just on the 8th storey, it's one of the tallest spots in the vicinity which grants a nice, if not so scenic view of the beach. The night ambience in the al fresco areas with the roof top pool makes it a quiet and very pleasant place. One could always reduce the value of an al fresco dining appeal since the weather is virtually humid all year round, however this is located just beside the sea and well, there are occasional sea breezes just to up the ambience by a few small notches. Truely, it might have been a splendid location and one could argue that it just probably is, since it is this very location that makes it very suitable for a quiet tealight dinner. Did I mention having also to look past the tacky wooden bars and retro styled crystal lamps on the walls?

If you haven't yet been sufficiently distracted by the description of the location, you might still recall that I have just mentioned that the service is rather spotty. I usually do not walk into restaurants expecting top notch and wisely discretionary attention unless top dollar is paid for such service. These to me are appreciatively nice touches most of the time. Also, I'm more interested in what I get to my stomach then any other superficial flair that an eatery might practice, but I'm sure that it is agreeable that there are minimal expectations that one would have. The restaurant was slightly over half filled on a Friday night with no service staff bothering to even bring a menu to the table until we requested for one from the crew of waitresses that looked that they didn't have the time to even glance to a table of 3 that is just seated and without a menu. To be fair, the service which leans towards an old world charm was quite friendly when it arrived.

The prices here are what I consider to be quite regular of the less expensive Italian places. That means that while it isn't really cheap, the cost of eating here doesn't come across anywhere close to exorbitant. Portions do look quite generous and the food is in a nutshell, pretty ok. That means that while it doesn't fall into the category of being mediocre, there are easily many other places that do better. Which also means to me that I'll probably have a difficult time justifying coming back again to this place.

I managed to break the common routine of just getting pasta in an Italian and since this is my first visit, and I hadn't any idea if there was anything that was great about theirs. The availability on the briefly described menu didn't look too interesting, so apart from an antipasto platter, I grabbed the Saltimbocca alla Romana.


This is a very regular olive oil drenched antipasto platter with the exception of the vegetables that came chilled and marinated. That was something that I didn't expect. I was thinking that they'd be grilled instead and also weirdly, the button mushrooms were so soft that they almost disintegrated in the mouth without having to chew on them. The ham and salami are really, just ham and salami and apart from the enjoyable hard and crumbly parmiggiano reggiano (one of the cheeses), I don't really have much comments here.

From what have gathered, the Saltimbocca is a meat dish lined with proscuitto and it's pretty much the thing that I got. Here its done with pieces of chewy pork meat wrapped in parma ham, seasoned in sage and sitting atop pan fried potatoes and some vegetables. Hearty would be the good word for this dish and I quite enjoyed the slightly charred potatoes. I couldn't quite make out what the sauce was however. The taste was a little buttery and saltish.

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