Instead of filling up the usual questionnaire at our next medical checkup, we compiled this list of the best hawker stalls, restaurants, and bars we visited in Singapore for 2024.
This year has been the year of pizza, with at least three notable places debuting here. But in a sea of Neo-Neapolitan style pies and exotic toppings, our vote goes to L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele, a restaurant firmly rooted in the birthplace of pizza and simple yet high-powered ingredients. Sticking to the Italian theme, Locanda is one of the best places we visited this year, offering pasta worthy of its one-starred background. Joining our best restaurants in Singapore for 2024 is Hevel. Chef Stefan Liau’s precise yet sincere cooking redefined what contemporary European cuisine could be, reinforced by drinks pairing from cocktails to fortified wines. Unfortunately, Liau past away earlier this month.
Tanglin Halt Market gets this year’s nod for having some of the best hawker stalls in 2024. Untainted by time and tourists, the food centre serves up culinary gems including laksa, prawn noodles, lor mee, and wanton noodles. When we are really digging the last, we head to Laifaba. The Bukit Batok eatery offers the platonic ideal of the dish, from noodles to char siu. For late-night cravings, we are at Oriental Chinese Restaurant more often than not for our shaokao fix.
The barbecued meat skewers certainly help before hitting up our best bars in 2024. Idle Hands is a 14-seater, (mostly) one-person show with the personable Jay Gray. The ever-so-serious Manhattan reveals its playful side with East47 and its irreverent cocktails. The Warehouse Lobby Bar demonstrates how bars can showcase Singapore’s history without being tacky through creations like a buah keluak Espresso Martini. Check them out below.
(Hero and featured images credits:@laifaba/Instagram; @gl_live2eat / Instagram)
The 9 best hawker stalls, restaurants, and bars we enjoyed in 2024
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East47
If Manhattan is the imposing glamour of downtown New York, East47 is its irreverent Midtown cousin. Opened this September, the bar-within-a-bar stays true to Manhattan’s Big Apple roots but sends it up Andy Warhol-style through cocktails that are cheeky, flamboyant, and cleverly executed. The oft-derided Cosmopolitan, for instance, becomes a fruity milk tea that punches with tequila, and a blue cotton candy brings relief after a spicy Daiquiri. The bar bites are just as inspiring, from a Wagyu hanger steak with bearnaise sauce to charcoal battered stingray and spicy ginger.
Wednesday & Thursday, 6pm – midnight
Friday & Saturday, 6pm – 1am
Closed from Sunday – Tuesday
(Image credit: Conrad Singapore Orchard)
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Hevel
To write about Hevel now is to do so with a heavy heart: chef-owner Stefan Liau passed away in December 2024, not even a year after he opened his restaurant. Still, in these brief months, his restaurant has grown confident in its Euro-centric dishes sharpened by Liau’s precise cooking. Chive oil unites briny scallops and a chawanmushi-like custard. Bitter grapefruit played beautifully with rich kingfish. At S$138++. the nine-course chef’s menu also represents fantastic value, backed by exhilarating drinks pairing options from fortified wines to cocktails.
Tuesday – Thursday, 6pm – 10.30pm
Friday & Saturday, 6pm – 11pm
Closed on Monday
(Image credit: Hevel)
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Idle Hands
Idle Hands are Jay Gray’s workshop at the Ann Siang Hill bar. Unlike his previous, more sprawling operations, which include the award-winning Sago House and gastropub Underdog Inn, this drinking spot is a 14-seater show manned mostly by Gray. He has also done away with menus, so you get his full, affable attention and a drink made entirely for you – it might go up on the wall if it is delicious enough.
Wednesday – Saturday. 5pm – midnight
Closed from Sunday – Tuesday
(Image credit: Idle Hands)
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Everyone has a go-to spot for wanton noodles, and mine is in a Bukit Batok industrial estate. Laifaba’s signature is a sum of its parts: “bu jian tian” char siu that is both lean and fatty. Springy, al dente egg noodles. Wantons two ways, silky-skinned and brittle. Barely-cooked, crunchy kai lan. A delicate pork and scallop soup. Save space for the Hong Kong-style roast meats, which are roasted over lychee wood. The space is also a wonderful throwback to old-school coffee shops with kitschy decor like a vintage hair dryer.
Tuesday – Friday, 11.30am – 3pm, 6pm – 9pm
Saturday & Sunday, 11.30am – 3pm, 5.30pm – 9pm
(Image credit: Laifabar / Facebook)
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This year belonged to pizza, from the Tokyo-style Beyond the Dough to the eternally-crowded Casa Vostra. My favourite, however, is Da Michele. It eschews the trendy Neo-Neapolitan pie for something more rustic, more Naples than New York or Japan with a large, lumpy circle they call pizza a ruota di carro (wagon wheel pizza). The simple toppings also harken back to a time when pizza was considered peasant food. Of course, you can go more extravagant with ingredients from truffle to fancy Tuscan ham, but the Margherita is pizza at its finest.
Monday – Saturday, 12pm – 3pm, 6pm – 11pm
Sunday, 12pm – 4pm
(Image credit: L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele)
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Locanda
Buona Terra ranks up there as one of the finest Italian meals I had in Singapore, but a writer’s salary does not account for a three-hundred-dollar tasting menu on repeat. Thankfully, there is Locanda. Opened by the same team behind the one-starred Italian restaurant, the pasta here is generously portioned, homey, and lovingly made, from silky sheets of pappardelle with beef ragu to a transportive mixed seafood spaghetti. Locanda is named after the Italian word for “inn,” and like any good countryside tavern, you are leaving here well-fed.
Monday, Wednesday & Thursday, 6pm – midnight
Friday – Sunday, 12pm – 3pm, 6pm – midnight
(Image credit: Locanda)
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Oriental Chinese Restaurant (Dongbei Meishi)
When I need to line my stomach before drinking or have something to soak up the excesses of the evening, Oriental Chinese Restaurant is my go-to. The eatery specialises in Dongbei-style skewers, heady with smoke and cumin, as well as hearty dishes from spicy and sour shredded potatoes to dumplings. All to be washed down with a cold bottle of Tsingtao beer.
Monday – Sunday, 11am – 05.30am
(Image credit: Oriental Chinese Restaurant / Facebook)
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Tanglin Halt Market
Singapore’s heartland eateries are increasingly popping up in travel guides and social media: I have encountered tourists swiping on Dianping (China’s version of Yelp) at my local prata spot in Upper Thomson. Fortunately, it has not happened at Tanglin Halt Market. Despite the area being in a state of flux – old HDBs slated for demolition next to upcoming BTOs – the hawker centre has maintained its sleepy charm. I primarily come for the lor mee with nuggets of fried fish in a garlicky broth, as well as the wanton noodles popularised in one of Eric Khoo’s movies. If you go early enough and brave the queue, the laksa is excellent too.
(Image credit: @fudzlist / Instagram)
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Singapore’s place in the regional spice trade has been milked to death as a bar concept, with venues either doing it blatantly or in a tone-deaf manner. Not so with The Warehouse Lobby Bar. While the inspiration is evident, the Robertson Quay bar does it with a wink and a nod through cheekily-named drinks and ingredients that complement rather than define a cocktail. Need more proof? Look no further than the Black Martini, an espresso martini riff with buah keluak, curry, and salted egg.
Sunday – Thursday, 11am – midnight
Friday & Saturday, 11am – 1am
(Image credit: The Warehouse Hotel)
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Jethro enjoys wine, biking, and climbing, and he's terrible at all three. In between them, he drinks commercial lagers, and eats dumplings and ice cream.
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