Where to eat and drink in Singapore
Short and opinionated. Places I go back to when I am in Singapore, and the one thing worth ordering at each.
Last checked · 4 places
Burnt Ends
Eat · Dempsey Road, Dempsey Hill · Singapore · $$
Order: Sit at the counter, order the beef marmalade on brioche, the king crab, and whatever is coming off the big grill
Dave Pynt's barbecue room, moved to Dempsey in 2022, one Michelin star in the 2026 guide, an open kitchen built around a four tonne wood oven and the grills beside it. Modern Australian cooking over fire, a cellar of two thousand Australian bottles, a bakery at the front. Book at least two weeks out, even midweek. It is the restaurant people in Singapore argue about least, and I agree with them.
Verified
Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice
Eat · Maxwell Food Centre, Kadayanallur Street, Chinatown · Singapore · S$5 to S$9 a plate
Order: A medium plate, extra chilli, and a bowl of the soup; get there before eleven
Stall 10 and 11 at Maxwell, the chicken rice everyone has heard of and the one that still earns it: poached chicken that is actually silky, rice that tastes of the stock, chilli that bites. Tuesday to Sunday ten until nine, closed Monday. The queue is long by noon and short at a quarter to eleven. Ah Tai two stalls down is the ex cook's rival and half the city prefers it; I tried both and picked Tian Tian.
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Atlas
Drink · Bugis, the lobby of Parkview Square, North Bridge Road · Singapore · $$
Order: A gin and tonic from the tower, and the Champagne list if it is that kind of night
The Art Deco lobby bar of Parkview Square, the gold building on North Bridge Road, with an eight metre gin tower holding more than 1,300 bottles and a champagne room under it. On every best bars list in Asia since it opened and in Tatler's top twenty for 2026. It is a set, and it knows it, and the drinks are better than a set needs them to be. Jacket not required but I wanted one.
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The Tanglin Club
Club · Stevens Road, off Orchard · Singapore · Reciprocal guest; members and guests only
Order: Dinner in the Churchill Room, breakfast by the pool, and a room upstairs if your own club has the reciprocal
Founded in October 1865 by forty good men and true, as the minutes put it, on the same Claymore land it bought in 1866, and still the club in Singapore. Four thousand members from seventy countries, tennis, squash, pools, a proper library, and the Churchill Room, opened in 1957 on the night of the annual ball and still where the ball is held. I come in on the reciprocal and stay in one of the 27 suites when I can; it is the best address in the city for the money.
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