The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Central Singapore

White-gloved service and a dedicated cheese cart signal exactly what kind of evening you're in for at this French fine dining institution tucked into Shaw Centre. Chef Sébastien Lepinoy, who spent nearly two decades with Joël Robuchon before landing here, runs a kitchen that holds three Michelin stars, a Forbes Five Star, and a spot on Asia's 50 Best list. The room is formal but never stiff, the kind of place where the truffle server knows more about truffles than you ever will.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 #38 · Asia's 50 Best Restaurants

A dessert counter with a global reputation sits at the back of this intimate 36-seat fine-dining room on Orchard Road, where contemporary French cooking picks up quiet Asian inflections along the way. The wine cellar runs to tens of thousands of bottles, which makes sense once you know the culinary director is also a sommelier. Iggy's holds a Michelin star and a Forbes Four Star, and has been around long enough to count as a genuine Singapore institution.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

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

Tucked behind a curtain in the Marriott Tang Plaza lobby, this Prohibition-themed cocktail bar signs its tiny round tables with the names of famous rum runners, which is either charming or a history lesson depending on your mood. House-finished spirits aged in small barrels are the thing the bar is built around. Sit in a banquette if you like a challenge, or perch at the bar where someone actually knows what they're doing.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Sunlight pours through floor-to-ceiling windows at this cocktail bar inside the Four Seasons, where the botanical theme isn't just decor, it runs through the menu. Drinks pull from fresh market produce with plant-based and wellness-leaning options alongside the classics, and the Kitchen Garden cocktail mixes aquavit with tomato, mushroom, and celery in a way that sounds like a salad but drinks like a dare.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. World Coffee Map Singapore Coffee Guide for Travelers
2. World Coffee Map Singapore Coffee Map for First-Time Visitors

The Bloody Mary menu runs to several variations here, which tells you something about what kind of bar this is. Tucked into the ground floor of the St. Regis, the Astor Bar does luxury hotel drinking in the old colonial register: red leather, dark wood, art deco brasswork, and the general air of a gentlemen's club that never quite closed. The house Chili Padi Mary arrives spiced with lemongrass, ginger, and chilli.

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

Wagyu cooked tableside on a small grill, with the marbling doing most of the talking. This is a steakhouse in Palais Renaissance that works with A3 to A5 Japanese Wagyu and treats sourcing as the whole point, not a bullet point on the menu. The room is calm and spare, the service knows when to explain and when to disappear, and the sake pairings are chosen to flatter the beef rather than compete with it. Ranked among the World's Best Steak Restaurants.

1. World's 101 Best #83 · World's Best Steak Restaurants

The entrance is a black curtain behind Uma Uma Ramen, and the stairs drop you into a dimly lit cocktail bar that makes Orchard Road feel like another country. The Japanese minimalist design carries through to the bar snacks, where stingray fins make an appearance alongside whatever's in your glass. People call it a speakeasy, though there's no password and no velvet rope theatre, just a curtain between you and the noodles.

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

A long bar anchors one end, burgundy club chairs and reading lamps fill the middle, and a glassed-off smoking room with cigars and international newspapers occupies the other, which tells you most of what you need to know about this hotel cocktail bar tucked behind the restaurant on the Grand Hyatt's mezzanine. The 50 fruit martinis on the menu are less alarming than they sound; order around them and the bar does its job quietly and well.

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