Grasshoppers are not the only things you will find in Singapore, where top bars serve up bee pollen, cashew milk and more With 12 of Asia’s 50 best bars in Singapore, it is hard to throw a shaker without hitting a great bar to drink at. To make your job easier, I visited numbers 1, 4, 8 and 19 — Manhattan, Atlas, Native and Operation Dagger respectively. And yes, I can do the math; that leaves eight to go, and enough for Parts two and three. What is a trip without a sequel and then one more?
Manhattan, Cuscaden Road
Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll was an infamous hitman during Prohibition, and the first bar I visit in Singapore pays homage to the town where he ruled — once known as New Amsterdam, now better known as Manhattan. Located in Regent Hotel, on Cuscaden Road, it has not only topped Asia’s 50 Best Bars ranking two years in a row, but also broken into the world top 10, rising to #7 in the Drinks International World’s Best Bars rankings for 2017. With Four Seasons’ veteran, Philip Bischoff at the helm, this comes as no surprise
My first cocktail is Mad Dog, a take on the Old Fashioned, which tips its fedora to the Irish American’s heritage by using Irish whiskey and, for a sweetener, a combination of Orange Curaçao and Maraschino liqueur. The drink itself comes smoke-filled and covered with a glass to trap the wild cherry bark aromas inside. Next, I turn my eyes to the bar’s barrel-aged cocktail programme (pictured above). Manhattan has borrowed from Spain’s Solera system (used to age sherry) to create their Solera Negroni. In retrospect, I would have done better to choose something else — the cocktail did not reflect the time spent in the barrel. However, my next pick is spot on. The Corpse Reviver #47, a variant of the Corpse Reviver (from a family of hangover cures), is so named because it is aged for 47 days and has the Monkey 47 gin at its heart. The bracing cocktail is just right to set us up for our next bar.
Native, Amoy Street
On to Amoy Street. The bar sources everything from around Asia — hence the name and the reason for spotting bottles of Old Monk and Paul John. It is also driven by the concept of ‘foraging’, something Vijay Mudaliar, the founder, believes in. The cocktails, which are expertly served up, are flavour forward, comprising carefully-sourced ingredients. Some are even made in-house, in their upstairs R&D lab, where they extract flavours from local ingredients.
We start with the Grasshopper, served in a small ceramic cup. With a float of coconut ice cream, it comprises Chalong Bay rum, wheatgrass, lemongrass, sugarcane, Thai basil and, to give it an extra kick, actual grasshoppers. Creamy and delicious, I did not even mind the insects. With Old Monk on the menu, I had to end my evening with Chai. Served in a kulhad, it tastes of a medley of spices in addition to cashew milk, Darjeeling tea and Old Monk. As I leave, I promise to send Native a bottle each of DJ Mahua and Cazulo cashew feni (a promise kept).
Atlas, North Bridge Road
Visual spectacle is always welcome, and I have never seen a bar more spectacular than Atlas. Another expat is at the helm here — Roman Foltan, formerly of the Artesian at the Langham Hotel (winner of best bar in the world, four years in a row). Housed in the iconic Parkview Square in the Bugis neighbourhood, it is a massive Art Deco-inspired lobby bar. Outside the building is a sculpture of Atlas, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and inside, the high ceilings are covered with tales of Greek myth.
At the back is a gin tower, housing over 1,000 bottles, and we are presented with a separate menu for it. Having been intrigued by a Kyoto dry called Ki No Bi in the past, I ask She Wei, the young bartender from Kuala Lumpur, to mix me a Le Chiffre martini (named for the villain in Casino Royale). It combines Ki No Bi, wheat vodka, white port and absinthe, and is crisp and dry, just like the perfect martini should be. She then mixes up a couple of house specials, the Atlas Martini, for us, free of charge. A welcome fruity, yet floral taste, to what is a perfectly served up martini.
Operation Dagger, Ann Siang Hill
“At the time we opened, many bars were labelling themselves speakeasies or secret bars — something I was against. Operation Dagger was a police blitz carried out in the ’50s against secret societies, and I thought the name fit our ethos,” owner Luke Whearty tells me. Inside, a cluster of bulbs hang low and the bar tools are suspended above, pulled down when required, adding a touch of theatre. The bar does not believe in liquor bottles; all brands of alcohol are decanted into cylindrical bottles with coded labels to indicate the flavour profile. If you find that weird, the menu goes one step further: describing only the flavours. The bartender’s reasoning is that you need to abandon pre-set beliefs about drinks, and enjoy an experience that “blurs the line between a restaurant and a bar”. Bee Pollen 2015 — listed as wild bee pollen, oak, thyme, dark chocolate and lemon charcoal (I can only surmise the oak refers to an oak-aged spirit) — is stiff and refreshing. I move on to the Gomashio 2013 — toasted sesame, cucumber and ginger — and Whearty unbends to tell us it has sesame-infused vodka. The portion sizes are small and the cocktails, at SGD 25 (approx ₹1,260), are not cheap, even for Singapore.
