The Most Exciting New Spots to Eat and Drink in Singapore
These five spots are changing how the city dines, from Hainanese chicken at a nightclub to beachside barbecue.
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The buzziest new restaurants and bars in Singapore understand the assignment. It’s about creating fresh energy while celebrating classic flavors. It’s about top-tier experiences that are welcoming and aren’t fussy. It’s about favoring fun over rigidity.
Singapore has long been known for both its street food and its ultra-fine dining, but it turns out that what’s in the middle can be just as wondrous as affordable satays and caviar-laden tasting menus. Chefs who worked for world-renowned restaurant brands inside high-end casino resorts are now cooking on their own terms at vibrant new spots. Cool hotels, recognizing how much guests enjoy hawker-stand food around the city, are weaving dishes like Singaporean laksa and Hainanese chicken into their dining and nightlife portfolios. Restaurant groups are getting more ambitious and high-spirited as they redefine what makes Singaporean food.
This is a city where food is truly international and always leveling up, and locals are spoiled with the array of offerings. Even Din Tai Fung, a highly coveted reservation in many cities, is easily accessible in Singapore. And Din Tai Fung’s numerous locations at shopping malls, including one at the Jewel Changi airport, serve specials like chili crab soup dumplings and kaya buns.
What’s happening now in Singapore mirrors what’s happening in many important food cities around the world. Yes, the global dining brands are here and have calibrated their restaurants for both a local and an international audience. But there are also great neighborhood destinations and scenester hangouts, whether you’re looking for a curry-powered dinner or a bistro lunch or a beachy barbecue. Here are some new players re-setting the scene.
The Five Best New Restaurants to Know in Singapore
Belimbing
- 269A Beach Road, Singapore, 199546
At this new restaurant from the team behind The Coconut Club, chef Marcus Leow is focused on “new-gen Singaporean food.” In Leow’s capable hands, merging time-tested flavors with updated ingredients and presentations is harmonious.
Clam custard with scallop, asam pedas and white pepper evokes the feeling of eating seafood at picnic tables on the streets of Geylang. Beautifully plated aged kanpachi pops with pink guava and coconut milk. Main dishes like fried chicken and grilled prime short rib are fragrant and flavorful with curry spices. Nasi ulam, a traditional Southeast Asian rice dish, comes with perfectly seared seasonal fish.
The goal for a lot of restaurants is to feel familiar and brand-new at the same time. Belimbing succeeds at this without anything feeling contrived. This is confident, playful and careful cooking that honors heritage while creating its own path.
The Singapore Edition
- 38 Cuscaden Road, Singapore 249731
It’s after midnight at Wonder Room, the vibey, red-hued micro club tucked below street level at The Singapore Edition hotel, and there’s an elegant woman in a blush satin dress at a VIP table eating Hainanese chicken over rice. She’s not getting special treatment. This nightlife destination, knowing that revelers get hungry in the wee hours, likes to pass out snacks to its guests while a DJ and on-stage dancers keep the party going.
With a cocktail menu led by Singapore Edition beverage director Giovanni Graziadei (who previously helped run the bar program at Singapore mixology mainstay Jigger & Pony), Wonder Room serves excellent Negronis and Clover Clubs. You can also get good drinks at the hotel’s lobby bar, rooftop pool bar and Punch Room, the latter of which is a strikingly blue space that serves punch bowls inspired by the history and flavors of Singapore.
The Edition is very much a luxury hotel that wants to pay tribute to Singapore. Breakfast at Fysh, a restaurant that serves famed chef/fish butcher Josh Niland’s sustainable seafood menu for lunch and dinner, includes street-food favorites like laksa (Fysh’s version has lobster) and nasi lemak.
The Plump Frenchman
- 20 Tan Quee Lan St., #01-20, Singapore 188107
Chef Lorenz Hoja, who was previously executive chef at Singapore’s two-Michelin-starred L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, and Zouk Group have opened a delightful everyday brasserie with comforting classics like braised veal shank, coq au vin and flounder meunière on a menu that also has a dedicated rotisserie section and properly buttery pommes purée. At a recent dinner, we marveled at the plumpness and meatiness of frog legs after we enjoyed chorizo-stuffed squid.
In a city that favors hearty street food over leafy greens, you’ll probably be happy to find a transportive French restaurant with an expertly constructed salade niçoise. Anchovies with tomatoes and good olive oil on little pieces of sourdough are another nice way to start, and lemon tiramisu is a refreshing way to end. This restaurant works well for quick lunches as well as leisurely dinners.
Tanjong Beach Club
- 120 Tanjong Beach Walk, Singapore 098942
Seafood towers, tropical spritzes, bottles of rosé and unforgettable sunsets set the tone at this waterfront destination on Sentosa Island. Tanjong Beach Club, which reopened in April after a stylish makeover from The Lo & Behold Group, is where DJs amp up the energy as daytime turns into evening. Come sunset, the pool and on-site restaurant fill up as strangers (both locals and tourists) become pals.
Guests get their hands dirty eating burgers, grilled prawns and corn ribs atop towels on daybeds while countless social media photos are being taken on the beach behind them. The vibe is coastal barbecue with a menu of wood-fired dishes from head chef Mong Zhen Yew (formerly at Singapore’s Osteria Mozza and Spago) and consulting chef Vallian Gunawan (who runs Kindling in Jakarta). This is a party that’s simultaneously high-energy and low-key at the same time. You can come here to rage, but you can also come here to decompress, eat pasta and lie down as you stare at the dreamy sunset.
StraitsKitchen
- 10 Scotts Road, Singapore 228211
This halal buffet wonderland, which reopened at the newly renovated Grand Hyatt Singapore last year, brings together hawker-stand favorites and all-over-the-map Asian food. There’s laksa, nasi lemak, congee, Chinese pastries, dim sum and, best of all, an Indian station with terrific curries and pratas.
Yes, you should by all means go to an old-school hawker center when you’re in Singapore, but StraitsKitchen is where you can eat chicken rendang, channa masala, medu vada, prawn mee, youtiao, har gow, char kway teow, otak-otak, kek lapis, local fruits and classic patisserie offerings in one sitting. This restaurant is a trip in itself.
