Text by Kenneth SZ Goh
Images Courtesy of Singapore Tourism Board
Fondly nicknamed as the “Little Red Dot,” because it appears so small on a world map, the vibrant city-state of Singapore is only 290 square miles. But this well-manicured garden city packs in so much to explore.
One of the buzziest openings this year is New Bahru. Housed in a former high school, it has become an enclave of over 40 Singapore brands, from fashion and wellness, to arts and food. Explore paper art studio PeiPer and design studio Beyond the Vines (famed for its “dumpling” bag), then enjoy a meal at Coconut Club, a popular nasi lemak restaurant serving local favorites such as seafood laksa and beef rendang.
A hotbed of homegrown fashion and lifestyle designers, Design Orchard is a retail/talent incubation space in the heart of Orchard Road, an area that is also a mecca for luxury brands. Design Orchard offers more than 100 brands, with everything from fashion and accessories, to home furnishings, and beauty products. After shopping, score a well-earned rest at the building’s rooftop garden, which overlooks the junction of Cairnhill and Orchard Roads, the closest attempt at mimicking Tokyo’s Shibuya scramble crossing.
Como Orchard blends shopping and dining options. Check out Club 21, an emporium that carries renowned labels like Thom Browne and Jacquemus, as well as cult Japanese and Korean labels. Foodies are in for a treat with exquisite coconut and orange-shaped trompe l’oeil cakes and viennoiserie at French pastry chef Cedric Grolet’s eponymous first Asian outpost. Another standout: the sizzling barbecued meat served with a plethora of side dishes at Cote Korean Steakhouse.
Art aficionados should visit the National Gallery Singapore, housed in one of the country’s colonial landmarks, the former City Hall and Supreme Court. The gallery is home to the world’s largest collection of modern art from Singapore and Southeast Asia, spanning 8,000 pieces. Zero in on the DBS Singapore Gallery, which chronicles Singapore’s history through over 300 pieces of artwork by renowned artists such as Georgette Chen, Chua Mia Tee, and Liu Kang. Then head up to the gallery rotunda, a little-known, two-story art history library capped with a towering dome ceiling and soaring columns.
While art is food for the soul, don’t miss Odette, on the ground floor of the National Gallery, which is one of the three restaurants in Singapore anointed with three Michelin stars. Chef Julien Royer serves contemporary French cuisine with Southeast Asian inflections, such as the Kampot pepper-crusted pigeon. Service is impeccably intuitive, too.
A two-minute walk from the National Gallery is a stately cluster of colonial buildings that flank the Singapore River in the Central Business District. Embark on a walking tour guided by the plaques bearing historical information on buildings, and pop into the Asian Civilizations Museum, which focuses on artifacts and traditions from the region.
To better understand Singapore’s rich heritage, dive into the immersive exhibitions at the National Museum of Singapore, which covers the city-state’s transformation from a Straits Settlement to a bustling metropolis. Fort Canning Park, located behind the museum, is a tranquil hilltop space with a historical British fort and Christian cemetery (The great-great-great-great-grandmother of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a memorial plaque here).
Inside the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, the stunning La Brasserie is acclaimed Swedish chef Bjorn Frantzen’s take on casual French dining. Highlights include the whiskey flambé beef and steak tartare, both prepared tableside on a trolley.
While Singapore is home to over 50 Michelin-starred restaurants, hawker food is the cornerstone of the local food scene. An efficient starting point to experience Singapore’s hawker culture, which was inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2020, is Maxwell Food Center near Chinatown. It houses more than 50 hawker stalls, many of them run by second- and third-generation owners. Make a beeline to Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice—one of the most fêted stalls on the island—for its rich and aromatic rice cooked in chicken stock and served with poached chicken. Other gems here include Zhen Zhen Porridge for its Cantonese-stye congee and Mr. Appam for crisp and fluffy South Indian pancakes made using fermented rice batter.
A stone’s throw away, South Bridge Road exemplifies Singapore’s multicultural landscape. The palatial Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, housing the said artifact, sits alongside Sri Mariamman Temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore, established in 1827. The national monument has an intricately crafted gopuram (monumental tower) adorned with brightly painted Hindu deities. Every October or November, the temple hosts Theemithi, a fire-walking festival, where devotees walk across a fire pit. Rounding up the heritage street is another national monument, Jamae Mosque, a worship spot for Tamil Muslims from South India that dates to the 1830s.
Singapore has no lack of stunning skyscrapers—case in point: Marina Bay Sands, designed by the famed architect Moshe Safdie. The futuristic complex is crowned with a surfboard-like Skypark Observation Deck on the 56th story, providing one of the city’s best vantage points of the cityscape and Supertree Grove at the neighboring Gardens By The Bay.
The Esplanade-Theaters on the Bay is another architectural marvel, a performing arts center that regularly hosts concerts and other performances. The dome-shaped building, emblazoned with spike-like aluminum sunshades, resembles the popular but deeply divisive “king of fruit”: durian.
Enjoy dinner at Michelin-starred restaurant Labyrinth. Chef Han Li Guang gives time-honored local recipes an inventive contemporary touch. The restaurant pioneered chili crab ice cream and continues to push boundaries with dishes such as Hainanese chicken rice donabe.
Finish the evening up by heading to Parkview Square, with its imposing art deco architecture. The office building, which is an oddity among the sea of sleek commercial buildings in the Bugis area, houses one of Singapore’s grandest bars, Atlas. The opulent offerings include an extensive gin collection. Or try the Boterismo Fizz, a cognac and calvados-spiked carbonated concoction, to end your Singapore sojourn on a high.
