Singapore took a hard hit at this year’s Asia’s 50 Best Bars list. The results were announced at the inaugural awards ceremony held in Capitol Theatre today (May 3). While Regent Singapore’s Manhattan stayed at the top, most of the usual suspects moved in the opposite direction, with Sugarhall completely falling off the list.
First, the good news. Manhattan may have stayed at the top, but our favorite Gatsby-esque bar housed in the over-the-top Art Deco building in Bugis, Atlas, has climbed a whopping eight places into the top 10 at #4. Also slowly creeping up into the top 10 is Tippling Club. Under the helm of Joe Schofield, they’ve steadily risen up the list to #7, up four places from last year. Native, whose head bartender Vijay Mudaliar walked away with the Altos Bartenders’ Bartender award this year, is Singapore’s highest climber, up 12 places to #8 from debuting at #20 last year.
Outside of the top 10, 28 HongKong Street continues to fall, this time out of the top 10 to #12. The other Singapore bars on the list are Operation Dagger (#19, down 13 places), Gibson (#22, down eight places), Employees Only Singapore (#23, down six places), D.Bespoke (#32, down three places), Nutmeg & Clove (#33, down three places), Jigger & Pony (#42, down a staggering 21 places) and The Other Room (#50, down 15 places). See full list here.
With Sugarhall now unfortunately out of the picture, Singapore is now placed in a tie with China (Hong Kong and Macau included) as the city with the most venues listed. Once again, Japan (eight bars), Thailand (six bars) and South Korea (four bars) featured prominently this year, with bars in Indonesia (three bars), Taiwan (two bars), Malaysia (two bars) and the Philippines (one bar) rounding off the list.
