Reviews

Or, what a concept-heavy Shangri-La cocktail bar does when you order the boring drink, and the POV menu it sells as a take-home book.

On a shophouse cocktail room that helped teach Singapore how to drink differently, and now has to keep doing it without leaning on its own myth.

A dual-concept Amoy Street room from Jerrold Khoo and Bai JiaWei that turns its identity crisis into the actual concept.

On a 16-seat North Canal Road counter where Woo Wai Leong has spent years arguing for Nanyang-Chinese cooking as a tasting-menu category, in a city whose Chinese fine dining mostly still means Cantonese banquet.

On a 74A Amoy Street bar built around insect proteins, cultured quail, and the question of whether the future can taste like pleasure rather than punishment.

On a Craig Road shophouse that imported a Melbourne brunch grammar, refused to pretend it was inventing anything, and quietly roasts its own coffee under a barista with a national-circuit pedigree.

On a Duxton bar built around three hundred-plus agave and rice spirits, and the difference between education and homework.

On an Ann Siang basement bar that puts a toy in the glass and dares you to make it not work.

On the Purvis Street original that has outlasted its founders and the rest of their empire, and a Confit de Canard at $30 that proves the maths can hold if the room stays small.

On a Robertson Quay roastery cafe that has spent over a decade in a former spices warehouse, reopened in May 2024 after renovation, and still runs the Rodyk Blend named after its own street.

On a 35-seat Swissôtel rooftop restaurant where Kirk Westaway has spent a decade arguing for modern British fine dining, and an Egg in an Egg that smells like his father's barbecue.

On a transplanted New York speakeasy on Amoy Street that survives because it remembers what cocktails are actually for.