The Best Places in Singapore

Shao @ Frankel is a Teochew restaurant out in the Frankel Avenue residential belt, and it began life as a takeaway counter in Essex, which explains why it still feels like someone's kitchen that got ambitious. The crab arrives glazed and lacquered with a chili dip standing by, and the dishes around it, drunken cockles, wok-fried kway teow, are classic and a bit smoky. Dress for dinner, not a gala.

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

1. World Coffee Map Essential Coffee Shops in Singapore

1. World Coffee Map Singapore Coffee Guide for Travelers

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

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

Seventy-odd floors above Singapore, this cocktail bar at the top of Swissôtel The Stamford watches the city sprawl all the way to the horizon through floor-to-ceiling windows. The lights, the freeways, the towers below give it a faint Vegas energy, softened nightly by live music. The drinks list is serious, and the bar snacks lean toward the luxurious end of the menu.

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

A horseshoe bar in a whitewashed room with brushed concrete and a single lightbox letter board on the wall is either a bold design statement or a very confident shrug. At Fancy, a cocktail bar on North Canal Road, it's both. In a city that tends toward the ornate, the spare interior puts all the weight on what's in the glass, which suits the competition-pedigreed bar team just fine.

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

A rooftop pool bar perched atop The Fullerton Bay Hotel, with Marina Bay spread out below and enough greenery to make you forget you're on a concrete tower. Angular umbrellas and banquette seating keep things comfortable well into the evening, and a live band turns up often enough to feel like a bonus rather than a given. The cocktail list balances vintage classics and contemporary pours, which covers a lot of ground without overpromising.

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

The copper brewing vats are the first thing you notice stepping out of the dedicated lift on the thirty-third floor, followed by the malty smell of an active mash. Level 33 is a microbrewery bar perched above Marina Bay, with a wraparound terrace and views that make the city look like a scale model. Office workers fill the place at lunch; evenings are quieter and considerably more vertical than most pints get brewed.

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

A counter-format Japanese steakhouse from Tokyo, where wet-aged beef goes over binchotan charcoal and the chef works close enough that the whole meal feels like a conversation you weren't expecting to enjoy this much. Warm timber, clean lines, no flourishes competing for attention. It landed on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list at number 30, which tracks for a room this focused on doing one thing without making a fuss about it.

1. World's 101 Best #30 · World's Best Steak Restaurants

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

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

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

A wood-fired grill sits at the centre of this Tuscan steakhouse on Mohamed Sultan Road, turning out Italian and Australian Wagyu cuts with the kind of directness that makes you forget everything else on the menu exists. The room has the settled, unhurried feeling of an old trattoria that somehow never feels forced, and the Tuscan-heavy wine list knows exactly what it's doing. It ranked among the World's Best Steak Restaurants.

1. World's 101 Best #88 · World's Best Steak Restaurants

1. World Coffee Map Best coffee shops for work in Singapore
2. World Coffee Map Best cafes for reading in Singapore

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

Sustainability is the pitch at this specialty coffee shop on Beach Road, where the beans are sourced with intention and the pour-overs are treated as a project worth slowing down for. The space is modern and airy enough that laptops outnumber newspapers, which suits the mid-morning crowd just fine. Cold brew sits alongside the filter options for those who want their coffee commitment without the ceremony.

1. World Coffee Map Best coffee shops for work in Singapore

1. World Coffee Map Best coffee shops for work in Singapore

1. World Coffee Map Best cafes for reading in Singapore

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

A pool bar on the fifth floor of the Mandarin Oriental that somehow frames a cleaner view of Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer than most rooftops twice the height. The stepped layout catches a breeze even when the city is at its most suffocating, and the cabanas, daybeds, and angular umbrellas lean closer to Miami than Singapore, which the crowd seems not to have fully noticed yet.

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

The in-house microbrewery sitting in the corner is the whole point here. Brewerkz is a sprawling beer bar and hall in the Clarke Quay chaos, with pool tables inside and fan-cooled riverside seating out front. Around forty international bottles share the menu with a weekly rotating cask ale, which is not something you stumble across often in Singapore. Food and cocktails exist, but nobody's pretending that's why you came.

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

The back bar at this cocktail bar runs deep enough that "what are you having?" becomes a genuine philosophical question. Coffee Bar K has been around forever by Singapore standards, and the spirits list, Pétrus included, would cause serious distress to anyone on a budget. The cocktail menu is vast without feeling unfocused, and the head bartender handles every persuasion with the calm of someone who has seen it all.

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

A portrait of Brad Pitt watches over the bar at this Wolfgang Puck sibling, and nobody can quite explain why. The cocktail bar sits inside the Marina Bay Sands shopping complex, which means fluorescent retail chaos just beyond the open frontage, and smoked glass, dark wood, and candlelight within. The contrast shouldn't work as well as it does. A serious beer list and careful glassware signal that someone is paying attention.

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

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

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

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

Wall-mounted fridges packed with sake stretch the length of the room at this tiny stand-up bar, Singapore's sole Japanese-style sake joint. It's a sibling to a Tokyo original, which shows: the range runs deep into plum wines and shochus, and the snack menu leans into proper otsumami, the kind of thing you'd actually eat alongside a pour. Staff know the list cold, which helps when you're choosing between fifty-odd plum wines.

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

There's no menu at this compact cocktail bar tucked into a Haji Lane shophouse, just a conversation with whoever's behind the bar. You describe a mood or a flavor and they build something around it, often with fresh fruit pounded to order, which is why the wait can stretch. The retro furniture downstairs drifts upstairs, giving the room a faded, unhurried charm that sits a little awkwardly with how in-demand the place clearly is.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

A tequila bar at Riverside Point leaning hard into the theme, with mariachi on the speakers, agave-themed memorabilia covering the walls, and a menu listing over a hundred 100-percent agave tequilas alongside thirteen mezcals. The Margaritas come from a machine, except the premium ones, which arrive by hand (a meaningful distinction). Burritos and tequila prawns keep things grounded in Tex-Mex territory if you need something to eat.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

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

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

A cocktail bar on the 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands, Kudeta earns its reputation on the view alone: the infinity pool stretches out at eye level, Singapore sprawls below, and the elevator ride up leaves your ears ringing before you've ordered anything. The interior is a maze of angular spaces that don't quite flow, which gives it an oddly furtive feel for somewhere so high up. Come for a drink at sunset, then let someone else figure out the poolside situation.

1. Difford's Guide 3 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

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

A classic British post box, lacquered red, sits dead center in the bar as a nod to the General Post Office that once occupied this colonial waterfront building. Post Bar is the main hotel bar of the Fullerton, all marble, gilding, tall flowers, and long drapes, with a champagne bar tucked to one side. The crowd has largely migrated to the flashier sister property next door, which leaves this one feeling pleasantly unhurried.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 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

The smell of leather and Cuban tobacco announces this whisky and cigar bar before you're fully through the door. The Pacific Cigar Company, the sole formal distributor of Cuban cigars across Asia Pacific, runs the place, so the humidors are serious and the back bar holds around a hundred bottles, nearly all single malt Scotch. Members keep their bottles in dedicated lockers, which tells you the kind of crowd it draws.

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

A microbrewery bar in Clarke Quay where the decor seems to have taken a sharp left turn: black velvet, glitter balls, chandeliers, and silvered glass surround a large angular bar, and live bands fill the room most nights. The house brews run from lager to porter stout, with a rotating cast of guest beers alongside. The patio does respectable rattan-and-river-views if you prefer your pint al fresco.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

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1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

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