The Best Bars in Chinatown & around

The cocktail menu here is formatted as a magazine, which tells you something about how seriously this bar takes its own mythology. Tucked inside the Amara Hotel in Tanjong Pagar, Jigger & Pony manages to feel nothing like a hotel bar, which is a quiet miracle. The focus falls on reimagined classics, done with enough precision that the place holds spots on both Asia's 50 Best Bars and The World's 50 Best Bars.

1. The 50 #9 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 Altos Bartenders’ Bartender Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #3 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. The 50 #44 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · World’s Best Spirits Selection

Fermented grasshoppers and laksa leaves turn up in the cocktails here, and the aprons and drinking vessels are locally sourced too, because the commitment runs that deep. Native is a Pan-Asian cocktail bar on Amoy Street where nothing on the menu is a classic and the bottles are ones you won't recognize. It ranks on both Asia's 50 Best Bars and The World's 50 Best Bars, and the zero-waste philosophy gives the whole operation a quiet coherence that makes the strange ingredients feel inevitable.

1. The 50 #84 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The 50 #45 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

A cocktail bar on Amoy Street where the insect garnish is not a mistake. Fura runs on a sustainability-forward philosophy, which in practice means ferments, foraged ingredients, and flavors that take a moment to place. The team includes a former head forager from Noma and an ex-head bartender from the late Operation Dagger, so the weirdness is considered. It holds 2 Pins from The Pinnacle Guide and a spot on Asia's 50 Best Bars.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. The 50 #95 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Restaurant Bar

The foldable seats and sliding back-bar fridges tell you this 22-seat cocktail bar was designed with an architect's obsession, not just a decorator's budget. Night Hawk takes its name and mood from the Edward Hopper painting, all late-night quietude and slightly cinematic isolation in a Tanjong Pagar shophouse. It holds a pin from The Pinnacle Guide and a spot on Asia's 50 Best Bars, which is not a bad return for a room this compact.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. The 50 #77 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

Barrels of cocktails aging under a solera system for seven years sit at the end of the bar, which tells you immediately what kind of operation this is. D.Bespoke is a Japanese cocktail bar on Bukit Pasoh Road that runs on ritual and precision, all deep armchairs and the quiet confidence of a Ginza establishment that took a wrong turn and ended up somewhere better. Sit at the bar; the private room in the back misses the point.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Look for the iron hand on the shophouse door, then climb three flights to find one of Duxton Hill's more characterful cocktail bars. The team built most of it themselves from salvaged and upcycled objects, and the sparse back bar lands somewhere between a friend's apartment and a very cool squat. The owners describe it as "raw as fuck," which sets expectations neatly. A spot on Asia's 50 Best Bars list confirms it's found its crowd.

1. The 50 #56 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. The 50 #53 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

The pressed tin ceiling and a resident fortune teller in the entryway signal that this is, in spirit, a Manhattan speakeasy that somehow materialized on Amoy Street. It's a cocktail bar that takes the classics seriously, then quietly does something unexpected to each of them. The kitchen sends out bacon-wrapped lamb chops and bone marrow poppers for anyone who skips dinner. Difford's Guide rates it five stars.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 #89 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New International Cocktail Bar
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Uno Jang

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

The coffee shop chairs don't leave at 4pm; the bartenders just arrive. Stay Gold Flamingo splits its Amoy Street shophouse between a daytime cafe and an evening cocktail bar, and the two halves share almost nothing except the address. Come nightfall, the team behind Jigger & Pony and Employees Only Singapore are mixing drinks for a crowd that clearly got the memo about happy hour.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

A cocktail bar in Chinatown that treats Little India as its pantry, sourcing everything from nearby Tekka Market and turning the haul into distillates, ferments, and jellies that line the shelves like a apothecary's fever dream. The room itself goes full commitment: wood, gold, and vermillion, so the vibe lands before the drinks do. It earned a spot on The 50 Discovery list, which tends to find places like this before everyone else does.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Uno Jang

The house Gibson arrives with a smoked quail's egg, pickled onion, and housemade nukazuke, which tells you everything about the ambition level here. This cocktail bar on Bukit Pasoh Road leans into Asian inflections on the classics, pairing Roku Gin with a homemade Ginjo sake-vermouth. The mood is relaxed without being casual, and the food menu runs surprisingly seafood-heavy for a drinks-first room.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Uno Jang
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Uno Jang

Mid-century Japanese design, neutral tones, and cocktails that lean toward the delicate end of the spectrum: Live Twice is a cocktail bar on Bukit Pasoh that draws a direct line from Singapore to Ginza. It's a sibling to Jigger & Pony, and the drinks share that same considered approach, built around sherry, shochu, and quiet precision rather than anything showy. Happy hour runs six to seven daily, if you'd like a reason to arrive early.

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Uno Jang
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

Terrazzo floors, brass fittings, and rattan chairs give this natural wine bar on Club Street an aesthetic that can't quite decide what decade it wants, which turns out to be part of the charm. Le Bon Funk pours a tightly rotated list of natural wines alongside sharing plates that sit somewhere between casual and considered. The kind of spot where no one opens the menu before ordering a second glass.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Vintage vinyl lines the floor-to-ceiling shelves at this Duxton Road bar from the team behind the Ginza-style speakeasy D.Bespoke. The specialty is Japanese shochu, served across an extensive range that shows how varied the spirit can be, which puts it ahead of most bars in Singapore for anyone curious about it. Guest DJs work the actual records regularly, so the collection is more than decoration.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

A cocktail bar on Tanjong Pagar Road where the menu reads less like a drinks list and more like a dare. Tofu, togarashi, roast potato skin, and salted liquorice all show up in the shakers, alongside modernist classics like the Smokey Old Bastard, served in a mason jar with a straight face. The kind of place that rewards going in curious rather than cautious, and where asking the bartender to just pick something tends to end well.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

Kok Sen is a no-frills zi char spot on Keong Saik Road, which has since filled up with boutique hotels and cocktail bars that probably don't know it was here first. It's wok-fried Cantonese home cooking, ordered fast and eaten faster, and the Bib Gourmand has not shortened the wait. Put your name down, then spend the half hour studying how efficiently the staff ignore you. Bring cash-register patience and an appetite for gravy.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants & Bars To Eat And Drink At When You're Visiting Singapore

Marcy's is a dimly lit seafood restaurant on Duxton Road's shophouse strip, where the disco-leaning playlist is clearly there to make a first date feel less like an interview. The menu reads Italian with a Latin accent, so raw fish and citrus show up to keep the richer dishes in check. Pastas run light, the cocktails lean tropical, and there's a miso-touched pecan pie sundae if things are going well.

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants & Bars To Eat And Drink At When You're Visiting Singapore

Look for the Robot Coffee graffiti on Telok Ayer Street and you've found the door. Inside, this cocktail bar runs long and narrow, with chequer-tiled floors and raw cement walls that lean into a speakeasy mood. The real menu is a conversation: tell the bartender your spirit and whether you want something sour, spicy, or sweet, and they take it from there. A written cocktail list exists for the less adventurous, and no judgment is passed.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A basement cocktail bar tucked beneath a colonial shophouse in Chinatown, with white leather sofas, a glowing resin bar, and a wall of whisky heavy enough to earn its own library card. Members stash personal bottles in dedicated lockers, which sets the tone nicely. It skews serious about spirits without taking itself too seriously, and the room is small enough that the bartenders actually know what they're doing with your order.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

The cigar smoke hits you before you find your seat, which is partly the point. This speakeasy-style bar occupies a converted shophouse above a hawker spot in Chinatown, and locating it is half the ritual: ignore the yellow plastic chairs downstairs, walk past the shuttered cigar shop sign, and keep going up. Inside, interconnecting rooms fill out with bookshelves of whisky and the obligatory Che Guevara portraits keeping watch.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A U-shaped granite bar anchors the ground floor of a heritage art deco building in the CBD, where the after-work crowd files in for beer, wine, and a whisky list long enough to cause decision fatigue. The cocktail menu is short, leans whisky-heavy, and runs a little sweet. Upstairs, the Powder Room has the more atmospheric lounge setup if you're staying past the first round.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide