This is your 2024 edit to the best new bars and bar menus in Singapore.
This February, high-end barbershop Sultans of Shave opens an equally hairy cocktail bar, which serves drinks based on some of the most famous locks. White Shades expands the colour spectrum into 22 hues of cocktails, and contemplates how different colours can affect perception. The written word is not dead at Writers Bar, which pens down an monumental number of cocktails inspired by literary greats.
(Hero and feature images credit: Close Shave)
Best new bars and bar menus in Singapore in 2024
February
Close Shave
The people behind upscale barbershop Sultans of Shave have decided to grow their follicles into a cocktail bar. Enter Close Shave, which cuts some of the world’s most iconic hairdos into ten drinks. Knowing which style suits you involves taking a personality quiz, which spits back options like Dreadlocks, a spiced rum, pineapple, and pandan cocktail that recalls Bob Marley. The shaggy do of English rockers like Liam Gallagher is shaped into the bourbon and black tea British Mullet, and Lara Croft’s Ponytail swings into a whisky and chocolate tipple.
13 N Canal Rd, #01-02, Singapore 048826.
White Shades
Six months after its opening, White Shades has finally pulled the covers off its second-floor cocktail menu called Colours. Based on the colour spectrum, 22 cocktails are segmented into four themes that grow more conceptual. Clarified cocktails entirely populate the Clear section, while Mark plays with contrast to highlight a main colour, like white coconut oat foam sitting on top dark Guinness reduction, espresso, and coffee liqueur in the Black III.
The Mood section plays on how colours can reflect emotions, and a stick of rhubarb sharply changes the tequila and sparkling coconut water-based Fresh Pink. Under Flavours, White Shades wants you to think about how colours can affect perception, and the Sparkle Pearl belies its innocently pale complexion with waves of salinity.
25 Boon Tat St, Singapore 069622. Book here.
Writers Bar
For a place calling itself Writers Bar, it is fitting that the new cocktail menu is as hefty as a novel. The stately drinking den at Raffles Hotel has filled the pages with an impressive number of drinks inspired by literary greats, all of them with links to the historic landmark.
The opener is Madeline Lee, the first Singaporean author under the hotel’s Writer-in-Residence programme, and her stay at Raffles led to five drinks including the Mikan, a zesty whisky highball with a ball of calamansi balancing on the rim. Lament is a sherry cocktail motivated by “Jungle Book” author Rudyard Kipling, and fans of the fortified wine will not regret its bold oxidative flavour. From French novelist Andre Malraux, a cocktail called Spinoza’s Toast, which had a captivatingly silky texture. But some of the most interesting cocktails are not credited to any writer. Rather, they are billed as low-sugar, and the gin-and-vodka-based Light of the South was boozy, austere, and as bright as its name.
1 Beach Rd, Floor 1 Raffles Singapore, Singapore 189673. Book here.
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January
Highhouse
Joining Singapore’s rarified list of sky-high mega venues is Highhouse. Located across 10,000 feet on the 61st and 62nd floors of One Raffles Place, the establishment consists of a bar, restaurant, and nightclub with bird’s eye views of the Padang and Marina Bay.
Like its perch, a lot of things at Highhouse are soaring. There is a double-height main bar. The champagne room and wine cellar are vast. A 14m by 3m screen broadcasts digital artworks. And the music programme spans diverse styles from house, techno, progressive, hip-hop, and rap to other electronic music sub-genres.
Both the restaurant and bar draw on flavours around the Pacific Coast. To do this, the bar tapped on Jay Gray of Underdog Inn and Sago House fame to create cocktails like a clarified Pisco Punch with key lime foam and Umami Martini made savoury with Japanese seaweed. Similarly, executive chef Sam Chin offers sharing plates of seafood kokoda ceviche, Spanish Dover sole with homemade chye poh, and sakura pork belly in massaman curry, accompanied by sticky rice. Come early 2024, Highhouse will also open Nova, the tallest rooftop bar in Singapore on level 63.
1 Raffles Place, L61-62, Singapore 048616. Book here.
Moga
The latest F&B establishment to open at Pullman Hill Street is Moga. Concealed behind an unmarked sliding door, it takes cues from the Prohibition Era and 1920s Japan to conceive a modern izakaya that has big hopes of becoming one of Asia’s best bars.
To achieve that, Moga hired Marcus Liow – formerly of The Other Roof and Antidote – as head bartender and award-winning bar consultant Dario Knox to conceptualise the menu. Together with ex-Jigger & Pony barman Jasper Tan and Jay Shin of Barbary Coast, the team came up with 12 signature cocktails heavily influenced by Japanese flavours.
One of them was the champagne-like Crystal Sake Royale, a silky milk punch with junmai ginjo sake, passionfruit, and vanilla. Matcha and jasmine tea made the gin-based Geisha Garden floral and refreshing, while Karaita was a Mezcal Margarita with the bite of toragashi. For spirit-forward drinks, the Natsu-Roni added layers of coconut and bright red fruits to the classic Negroni, and Smoking Yakuza was a contrast of bold medicinal smoke and smooth coconut butter.
To eat, Moga has a concise food menu made up of hand rolls, sashimi, grilled items, and sandos. Some highlights included the sweet botan shrimp tempura and A3 ribeye accompanied by well-charred broccolini. The chicken tsukune was brushed with teriyaki and served with a sous-vide egg dip, which you should save for smearing over the wagyu sando.
1 Hill St, Pullman, Singapore 179949. Book here.
The Guild
Several bars that made Keong Saik Road a destination for boozehounds have left the area, but The Guild continues to hold the fort. Opened in 2018, the craft beer bar has renewed its drinks offerings and food menu of Asian-inspired grub.
As the only international taproom for Hong Kong brewery Young Masters, 16 of The Guild’s 18 taps are dedicated to beers. Seven of them pour their core range like a pilsner and a wheat beer, while the other seven taps dispense limited edition brews from the tangy Cha Chaan Teng Gose to a lychee-flavoured IPA. Other breweries and collaboration beers are showcased on two taps.
The Guild has noticed a demand for “casual, fuss-free drinking,” which they are trying to meet by introducing two draught cocktails, a G&T with orange and grapefruit, and a vodka highball with salted lime. Other signature cocktails are centred around Asian flavours and beer elements, from the cheng tng-like Red Date Redemption to the Stout Espresso Martini.
The new food menu shows off similar inspirations, such as hummus with chye poh and tiramisu soaked in stout and coffee. The rest is good old-fashioned pub grub, including mac and cheese, fish fritters, meatballs slathered in tomato sauce, and chef Alton Huang’s signature fried chicken.
55 Keong Saik Rd., #01-01, Singapore 089158. Book here.
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This article first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Singapore
