On a Japanese-cafe chain that expands by differentiating rather than replicating, giving each outlet its own exclusive, where the Tiong Bahru shop's preserved-radish egg sando is more interesting than the IG-famous beef sando the brand's hype is built on.
On a twenty-five-seat Tanjong Pagar bar inspired by Edward Hopper, where the drinks have to survive the design's good taste, and the Nighthawks signature is the case for why they do.
On Singapore's first samgyetang specialist, which turned the least photogenic, most restorative comfort dish into a viral, queue-generating destination. The classic herbal broth turned out too humble and too nourishing to be cheapened by the spectacle built around it.
On a Jiak Chuan Road shophouse that opened as Jason Atherton's tapas counter in 2011, and has spent the last decade quietly becoming Carlos Montobbio's Catalan-and-Japanese restaurant instead.
On a tenth-anniversary cocktail bar above the Humpback shophouse that wins through pacing, balance, and the savoury cousin of the Martini.
On a Beach Road upstairs room where Marcus Leow has refused to perform the category the press has been writing about, and a corn dish whose tea, brewed from the leaves and silks, holds the working position in two preparations of the same plant.
On an Australian gelato chain's first Singapore store, where the five local-exclusive flavours show whether an international chain localizes with craft or with a gimmick, and a salted-egg-yolk gelato, as considered as the chain's pistachio praline, settles it.
On a voco Orchard speakeasy whose strongest argument is invisibility: Percolated Cocktails that strip ingredients rather than add them, behind a velvet curtain that does not quite need the secrecy.
On a small Serangoon Gardens restaurant that tore out its thirteen-seat counter and dropped its tasting menu twenty per cent, the opposite of the standard chef-driven-restaurant trajectory.