Travels With Hannah: Singapore Embraces Its New Identity

By Hannah Selinger

They don’t exactly tell you about the heat. Or maybe they do, but I wasn’t listening.

I felt it the minute I landed at Singapore Changi Airport, which is, these days, its own attraction. (In 2019, Jewel, a nature-themed park, opened within the airport, drawing tourists and Singaporeans alike; among other things, it features an AI-esque fountain, which appears to spout water from nowhere.)

Singapore is a tiny country, just about four times smaller than the state of Rhode Island. You can get to Malaysia by driving across a causeway. For decades, the country enjoyed the reputation as a stopover destination. Tourists would arrive en route to other far-flung Southeast Asian countries, spending a few days and then moving on.

But ever since travel borders reopened following the pandemic — in 2022, that is — Singapore has embraced a new identity. It is, I found out when I visited in March, a destination in and of itself, flush with new restaurants, new hotels and new bars, an exciting place that requires a long pause.

I needed a long pause myself, heat or no heat. From Changi, I took an air-conditioned ride to my hotel, the newly renovated, 445-room Conrad Singapore Orchard, which has replaced the Regent.

Originally designed by iconic architect John Portman, the property has been recast to promote the work of local artists, with art and nature incorporated into the design at every turn. The 12-floor atrium boasts cascading botanicals, plenty of natural light and stunning fountains. It was exactly the visual respite I needed to overcome my long-haul journey from the states.

What I also needed was a meal. I soon found myself wandering along Joo Chiat Road, on Singapore’s east coast, an up-and-coming neighborhood with plenty of things to eat. My tour guide, Joyce Huang, took me to hawker stalls, snack carts and storefronts for five hours, offering a guide to the area’s history and a taste of the region, even as the midday heat closed in on us. When we had just about had enough, we ducked into Wine Mouth, a natural wine store that opened in 2021, to cool off and sip a little.

That night, I ate dinner at Summer Palace, a Michelin-starred restaurant within Conrad Singapore Orchard that had reopened in January after a renovation. Dinner began with a tea sommelier, who poured my selection tableside (the sommelier is on hand throughout the meal to make recommendations, should guests require them). Next, a parade of delicate dishes, including a piece of abalone so large and supple that it was impossible to imagine it ever having lived in the sea.

If you head to Singapore for just a handful of days, as I did, you may feel pressed for time. How can you eat as much as you want in so few hours? I wanted to eat it all, from the pandan cake (a must-try, at breakfast), to the sticky rainbow kueh (I bought mine on the street on Joo Chiat and brought it back to the hotel and ate it between meals). I needed to do dim sum, of course (a late-night dinner at Swee Choon, open since the 1960s), and also curry fish (Samy’s, no question, in Dempsey Hill, for lunch one day, where plates are simply banana leaves, and where I was told to eat the eyes; the restaurant has been open for over half a century).

And then there was Kun, which I was keen to try. Singapore’s sole omakase-style Sichuan restaurant opened in the fall of 2023. They generously opened for me for lunch one afternoon. I was the sole diner, as I enjoyed a six-course lunch: Kung Pao shrimp with long chili peppers; ma pao tofu, silken and soft and made right in front of me.

Later, as I left in the pouring rain, I walked over to the Amoy Street Food Centre (as if I could fit any more food in me) to watch the hawkers, and then, on the advice of a local, to the Maxwell Food Centre, where I ordered the legendary chicken rice from Tian Tian Chicken Rice (the Singaporean way is to visit the stall with the longest line, and this was it). If you leave Singapore without eating chicken rice — aromatic, moist, juicy, perfect — you simply haven’t lived.

There are, of course, the bars. At Manhattan Bar, within my own hotel, I enjoyed a luxurious flight of nonalcoholic beverages, as well as the Rickhouse Experience, where I was able to experience the bar’s signature cocktail barrel-aging process with head bartender Zana Möhlmann. Now in its 10th year, the critically acclaimed bar, with its Chesterfield sofas and brooding New York-style ambiance, has recently revamped its cocktail menu to tip its hat to Broadway, with a series of theater-inspired drinks.

During my visit, East47, a private 12-seater cocktail bar-in-a-bar, was just set to open. The private bar boasts an original Andy Warhol and is inspired by the artist’s Silver Factory, on East 47th Street, once home to the 1960s cultural avant-garde.

I slipped away, too, to Night Hawk, a chic bar that opened in early 2022. The drink menu is accessible via a QR code that appears within a bespoke “matchbook,” given to guests as they arrive. It’s a small space, with a Deco vibe. And although Raffles’ Long Bar had a line around the block, I was able to snag a bar table at the Writer’s Bar, where, yes, I ordered an obligatory Singapore Sling following dinner at Godmama Peranakan Restaurant. It’s in a mall — you can’t go to Singapore without visiting one, it turns out — and the food fuses Chinese, Malay, Javanese and South Indian cultures. In some ways, it’s the distillation of the island itself, which is many things all at once.

And about that heat? There are plenty of rooftop pools, it turns out. And shopping malls. When the heat gets to be too much, duck into the air-con, cool down, have a snack, and then head back out into the world. It’s the Singaporean way.