It’s almost dinnertime in Singapore and I’m about to polish off an Oyster Omelette. I’m not at one of the city’s celebrated open-air hawker centres tucking into the beloved local dish — a glorious mass of crispy, gooey eggs studded with succulent bivalves — but I’m sitting in a bar, enjoying a cocktail of the same name.
The bright yellow concoction is creamy and delightfully rich in umami — startlingly reminiscent of the dish it pays homage to. As bartender Josh reveals, the cocktail’s base is a distillate of oysters harvested from the waters off Pulau Ubin, a small island north-east of Singapore’s mainland. The drink is topped with miso-cured egg foam, coriander shoots, a smattering of Kampot pepper and a dash of Shaoxing rice wine. And it’s served in a cup made from oyster shells, no less.
The oyster omelette is one of many inventive tipples at Native, a laid-back, two-storey bar in Singapore’s Chinatown, where colourful heritage shophouses sit in the shadow of the city’s soaring skyscrapers. Opened in 2016, the bar celebrates local and regional spirits, ingredients and flavours, while producing as little waste as possible (which explains the creative barware). To this end, many of its ingredients are cured, pickled or fermented to extend their shelf life.
“In a small place like Singapore, sourcing can be a challenge,” says owner Vijay Mudaliar.
“Sometimes we get great produce, so I’m always thinking of ways to extract and lengthen those flavours. And other times we get produce that isn’t as fresh, but can be fermented,” he adds, gesturing to the rows of pickling jars lining the shelves.
This, along with the bar’s composting and upcycling efforts, has effectively created what is practically a zero-waste operation.
“The amount of trash the bar throws out every night could fit into the palm of your hand,” says Vivian Pei, a cooking instructor, writer and senior academy chair of the annual World’s 50 Best Bars list.
She’s one of my guides for the evening, the other being Gan Guoyi, co-founder of the Jigger & Pony group, a local hospitality behemoth. Both women also head up the Singapore Cocktail Bar Association, a nonprofit organisation that promotes the city’s craft cocktail culture.
Native isn’t the only bar in Singapore spotlighting local and regional ingredients. We visit nearby Sago House, another buzzy watering hole in Chinatown. Occupying the top floor of a shophouse near the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple — a majestic red-and-white structure built in the Tang dynasty style in 2007 — it offers a weekly rotating cocktail selection shaped by what’s available in local markets. Scrutinising the menu options scrawled in marker pen across a windowpane, I plump for a highball containing Korean Chuga soju, coconut vodka, citrus and tieguanyin, a Chinese oolong tea widely enjoyed in Singapore. The cocktail is light and smooth with a subtle vanilla undertone, making for easy drinking.
I glance around the small, dimly lit bar, which is, unsurprisingly, a hive of activity on a Saturday evening. It’s what Vivian describes as a “labour of love”: opened during the pandemic, its three co-owners built the interiors almost entirely by hand using upcycled materials, including coffee sacks salvaged from local roasters. The result is a raw, eclectic space enlivened by a colourful cartoon mural and an R&B-heavy soundtrack.
“It feels like I’m coming to a friend’s house,” says Vivian. “It’s not shiny, flashy or super swish, but that’s part of the charm.”
After draining our glasses, we step out into the muggy night, threading our way through bustling, lantern-festooned streets and past groups of elderly men playing Chinese chess on the sidewalk.
Our final stop this evening is one of Guoyi’s bars, Gibson, housed in a former huay kuan (Chinese clan association) building dating back to 1935. Guoyi’s late grandfather was the founding chairman of the Gan Clan cultural association here, and the family legacy lives on through Gibson today.
“For me, it was a natural decision to take on the property. One of the things I love about the building is its heritage, so I wanted to retain its original facade and structure,” says Guoyi, pointing to the beautiful stained-glass windows and antique ceiling.
In the same vein, Gibson’s back bar has been tiled with (newer) stained glass, adding to the vintage vibe of the space. Like Native and Sago House, Gibson sources many of its ingredients from local and regional producers.
This ethos shines through in my cocktail of choice, Urban Farmer No. 3, a light, fragrant medley of gin from Singapore-based Brass Lion Distillery and passionfruit marigold, granny smith apples and lime from local urban farm Edible Garden City.
Savouring my tipple, I reflect on just how far Singapore’s craft cocktail scene has come. In the late 2000s, cocktail bars were few and far between, with beer and whisky being the poison of choice for most drinkers.
Fast forward 15 years and the city is peppered with world-class venues, many of which are championing local and regional flavours in their craft. As Guoyi puts it, these are places where “you honestly won’t get a bad drink”. I couldn’t agree more.
A taste of the city
Over the next few days, I hit up yet more bars to find the city further reflected in inventive beverages. First on my list is Nutmeg & Clove, a bright, airy space on Purvis Street known for its Singapore-inspired cocktails.
“When we opened eight years ago, there were a few cocktail bars in Singapore, but they were mainly quite international,” says owner Colin Chia.
“I wanted to set up something that we could proudly call a Singaporean cocktail bar.”
He tells me that the bar’s menus always have something to do with Singapore. The latest iteration features 10 tipples inspired by a traveller’s account of visiting the city.
Singapore’s infamous chewing-gum ban is overtly referenced in the tongue-in-cheek Can Bubble Gum?, a saccharine, mezcal-based concoction topped with a light candy-flavoured foam.
However, the cocktail that catches my fancy is Garden City, which is also Singapore’s nickname. There’s a surprising amount of nature woven into Singapore’s urban fabric, from tree-lined streets and verdant parks, to the Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay and the UNESCO-listed Singapore Botanic Gardens.
It’s an abundance of greenery encapsulated in the drink — a light, herbaceous tipple made with gin and Ayuuk (a smoky spirit), and infused with musk melon, lime, shiso and a touch of honey.
The emphasis on place continues at Shangri-La Singapore’s Origin Bar, a swish space decked out in dark wood, gold accents and peacock-blue tones. Here, bartenders shake up creative cocktails inspired by the city’s six key districts. Following bar manager Adam Bursik’s recommendation, I opt for two rum-based creations: ID Please, a refreshing mix of Chalong Bay rum, cacao white, yuzu and lemongrass; and Tropez, a rich, smoky blend of chocolatey Matusalem rum, vermouth and Buddha’s hand (a fingered citron native to Asia). As Adam explains, both cocktails pay homage to the historic Balestier neighbourhood.
“Balestier used to be a sugarcane plantation, hence the rum,” he says.
Other offerings on the current menu include the Crystal Moj!to, a contemporary take on the classic cocktail. Instead of muddling mint leaves and lime juice, Adam distils both ingredients to create a clear concoction. It’s an innovative technique that nods to the ultramodern Marina Bay district, which is known for its spaceship-shaped hotel and solar-powered Supertrees vertical gardens.
Over at The Elephant Room, the spotlight is entirely on the vibrant enclave of Little India, where colourful markets are thick with the scent of spices, and street sellers hawk everything from flower garlands to gold jewellery. According to co-founder Yugnes Susela, “everything in The Elephant Room has some sort of reference point to Little India”.
For instance, the menus and coasters are embroidered with fabric offcuts from the neighbourhood’s sari shops, and the bar counter is built on russet-hued jaali (ventilation blocks common in Indian architecture). In the same vein, the shelves are lined solely with Indian-made spirits, while ingredients are sourced from Little India’s markets on a weekly basis.
Yugnes wastes no time serving me his bestselling drink, Buffalo Road: gin infused with pink guavas purchased from the eponymous street in Little India. “Gin and tonic was actually born in India, during the colonial era,” he says.
“We decided to give it a twist, adding a bit of vetiver [a grass native to India] to give it a woody note.”
Next, he offers me a taste of The Mango, a carbonated rendition of mango lassi (a yoghurt-based drink) topped with ginger foam. Yugnes says that mangoes are considered a “celestial fruit” in some Indian cultures, often featuring at important occasions such as weddings.
“Many locals don’t really know very much about Little India beyond the Mustafa Centre [shopping mall], and that’s kind of sad,” says Yugnes.
“But when customers exit our door, they learn something new.”
Leaving the bar an hour later, replete with yet more culturally inspired cocktails, I can declare that I certainly feel enlightened.
-National Geography
