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Written by Emily Jacobs
Five of Singapore‘s bars currently sit in the World’s 50 Best – a remarkable figure for a city of six million. What earns them those rankings isn’t just technique: it’s the city’s instinct for combining Southeast Asian ingredients, regional spirits and multicultural culinary traditions into drinks you won’t find anywhere else.
Here’s where to go.
Jigger & Pony
The SMASH ‘menuzine’ – Jigger & Pony‘s magazine-format cocktail menu – sets the tone immediately: this is a bar that takes its curation seriously. Twenty cocktails, mocktails and punch bowls are organised with editorial intent, and some of the most interesting are built around surplus: the Ugly Tomatoes uses beefsteak tomatoes rejected by restaurants, gin-washed and transformed into something worth ordering twice. A consistent presence in the World’s 50 Best Bars: #9 for 2025 and #3 in Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025.
Where to find it: 165 Tg Pagar Road, Singapore
ATLAS
The gin tower is the first thing you see: floor-to-ceiling shelves housing what is claimed to be the world’s largest gin collection, set against the high ceilings of the Parkview Square building’s art-deco lobby. ATLAS leans into the Roaring Twenties setting without irony – this is a bar that suits a suit, where the scale of the space and the depth of the back bar are the whole point. The cocktail list runs deep, but the gin selection is the real reason to come: ask the bartenders to work through the botanicals by region.
Where to find it: In the opulent Parkview Square. 600 North Bridge Road, Parkview Square
Manhattan Bar
The Regent Singapore’s second floor transports you to a very particular version of New York – dark leather Chesterfields, low light, the kind of pace that makes an hour disappear. Manhattan Bar,’s defining feature is its in-hotel rickhouse: the only one of its kind in a hotel anywhere, it produces the barrel-aged spirits used in the bar’s signature cocktails. Ask for something from the rickhouse specifically – the hand-cut ice and house-made bitters make the difference clear.
Where to find it: The second floor of the luxury hotel, Regent Singapore. 1 Cuscaden Road, Level 2 Regent Singapore
The Old Man
Culinary cocktails are the order of the day at The Old Man, a hidden cocktail bar marked by a single pineapple lamp hanging above a shophouse façade. Techniques and traditions more commonly found in kitchens dot the menu here – expect fat-washed spirits, sous-vide infusions and clarified concoctions, resulting in drinks like The Torrents of Spring, made with glutinous-rice cooked mezcal, grain Wild Turkey whiskey, amaro nonino, Campari, pom-beet shrub and charcoal. If that name sounds familiar, there’s a reason why: just like the bar itself, cocktails share a title with the novels of Ernest Hemingway.
Where to find it: 55 Keong Saik Rd., #01-04, Singapore
Native
Native in both name and nature, this hidden cocktail bar pays homage to the regional flavours of Southeast Asia through a succinct and seasonal cocktail menu. Fruits, herbs and vegetables, some foraged from the local area, are combined with spirits from the Philippines, Thailand, India and beyond to create curious combinations, like Peranakan (jackfruit rum, laksa leaves, goat’s milk, candlenut and gula melaka). The local focus is just one part of their sustainability ethos – they have a rooftop garden, coasters are made from lotus leaf and menus are printed on recycled paper.
Where to find it: On the second floor of an unmarked shophouse, 52A Amoy Street, Singapore 069878
28 HongKong Street
One of the city’s original speakeasies, 28 HongKong Street occupies an unmarked shophouse on a street that’s easy to walk past – which is entirely the point. Inside, the soundtrack is 90s hip-hop and soul, the lighting is low, and the cocktail list runs through house riffs on sours, juleps and martinis, each with enough of a twist to reward close reading. Reservations fill fast; book before you make other plans for the night.
Where to find it: The clue is in the name – look for a door with a ‘28’ sign at 28 Hong Kong Street, Singapore
Nutmeg & Clove
Nutmeg & Clove captures Singapore’s heritage in its progressive mixology. A regular in the 50 Best Bars of Asia and the world over the last decade (it’s currently #24 of Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025), the bar has found a new home on Purvis Street, complete with powder pink decor and staff uniforms. Its latest menu, Singaporean Identities, features the showstopping mezcal-based, toasted-rice flavoured Fried Rice Paradigm. Dishes like tofu satay and rendang mac’n’cheese are up for bites.
Where to find it: 8 Purvis Street, Singapore
Atico Lounge
Level 56 of ION Orchard puts you above most of the Singapore skyline, and Atico Lounge makes the most of the 360-degree position – the outdoor terrace is the natural place to start the night, particularly at dusk when the city grid below shifts from white to amber. The cocktail list runs to Japanese vodka, spiced rum and a house soda programme: the Purple Rain (Japanese vodka, Blue Curaçao, fresh cranberries) and the Cara (spiced rum, salted caramel, egg white) are the most-ordered for good reason.
Where to find it: At the very top of ION Orchard. Level 56 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, Singapore
Ce La Vi SkyBar
The SkyPark at the top of Marina Bay Sands Tower 3 hosts one of the city’s most spectacular outdoor bars – the Marina Bay at night, seen from 57 floors up, is the whole argument for Ce La Vi SkyBar. The cocktail list takes its cues from regional Southeast Asian ingredients: the Golden Age is a daiquiri reworked around Thai flavours, while the Native Garden draws on butterfly pea tea (Nam Dok Anchan), the blue-purple Thai and Vietnamese flower that turns drinks a colour you don’t forget.
Where to find it: At the top of the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark. Level 57, Marina Bay Sands SkyPark, Hotel Tower 3, 1 Bayfront Avenue
Sago House
Hidden on the third floor of a shophouse off Chinatown, Sago House’s mixology ethos has seen it land at number 15 of Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025. Its three owners (of HongKong Street and Spiffy Dapper, among others) are committed to sustainable practices, with the bar hand-built using up-cycled, reusable materials. The hospitality is award-winning, with the name of each punter chalked on their respective table. The highlight: a weekly rotating menu of six core cocktails crafted from local produce, like the amusingly named Don’t Go Bacon My Heart, crafted with bacon-washed mezcal, root beer and tequila.
Where to find it: 37 Duxton Hill, Singapore 089615
