The best restaurants in Singapore

Tucked into a quiet lane bordering Chinatown, Luke’s Oyster Bar and Chophouse has anchored Singapore’s seafood dining scene since 2011, carrying the spirit of a classic New England seafood house onto a tropical island. The wood-panelled dining room — intimate, elegant, and buzzing with local office workers — suits a power lunch just as well as an after-work drink. Founded by a U.S. national, the restaurant built its devoted following on the quality of its sourcing: oysters hauled from the cold Atlantic waters of Cape Cod, scallops from day boats on George’s Bank, and lobsters straight from New England traps. The menu leans into American classics with confidence — New England clam chowder, Maryland crab cakes, bone-in tenderloin au poivre, and the celebrated Blue Label burger. MICHELIN-featured and perpetually busy, Luke’s Oyster Bar and Chophouse is a must-book.

Few names carry as much weight in global restaurant dining as Nobu Matsuhisa’s, and Nobu Singapore, located within the Four Seasons Hotel along Orchard Road, makes the argument for his continued relevance with every service. The space is sleek and polished, built for occasions that call for theatre and precision in equal measure. Chef Matsuhisa’s signature Japanese-Peruvian cuisine — a creative fusion born in the 1970s that has since become one of the most celebrated culinary concepts in the world — is executed here with a confidence that sets it apart. The menu spans à la carte, teppanyaki, and private dining rooms designed for special occasions, anchored by the flagship Nobu signature omakase journey: a multi-course progression through the kitchen’s most refined flavours. Nobu Bar next door adds a stylish pre- or post-dinner option. 

Shoes off at the door — that’s the first instruction at Lagnaa Barefoot Dining, a multi-award-winning Indian restaurant in the heart of Little India that turns the act of eating into something close to ceremony. The three-storey shophouse on Upper Dickson Road offers table seating on the ground floor and floor seating upstairs, where low tables, cushions, and lantern light create a setting worlds away from the city outside. Owner and head chef Kaesavan — known to regulars as K7 — has built a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand-recognised kitchen around Arusuvai, the six flavours of Indian food: each dish carefully calibrated across sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. Spice levels run from 1 to 10, and the monthly Chilli Challenge on full moon nights draws its own devotees. Standout dishes include the butter chicken, threadfin fish curry, and chicken tikka. 

On Ann Siang Hill — one of Chinatown’s most characterful heritage streets, steps from Telok Ayer and Chinatown MRT stations — chef Louis Pacquelin has built a restaurant that earns the phrase he coined for it: French fun dining. Les Ducs takes the hearty generosity of classic brasserie cooking and runs it through an Asian lens, producing Gallic comfort food with local inflections that feel considered rather than gimmicky. Pacquelin, recognised as part of a new generation of chefs leading culinary innovation in Asia, has a sharp instinct for balance — between classic and contemporary, French and Singaporean — that keeps the menu both grounded and alive. The lunch programme, Bouillon by Les Ducs, opens Monday to Saturday. After dinner, the Madame Claude cocktail bar and social club on Level 2 keeps the evening moving. 

The open kitchen is the first thing that catches the eye at Mag’s Wine Kitchen, now settled into its new address on Neil Road in Chinatown. Chef-owner Mag Tang — a homegrown culinary figure who trained as a Forex trader before pivoting to food, with Peranakan roots that shaped her palate from an early age — runs the room with a practised warmth, often stepping from the stove to discuss dishes with guests. Her cooking draws on classical French technique and Japanese ingredients, resulting in plates like sea urchin with soba in yuzu dashi, white asparagus with miso mustard, and a Wagyu ribeye that the kitchen manages without fanfare. The walk-in cellar, lined with French, Italian, and Hungarian labels at accessible prices, is as much a reason to visit as the food itself. Mag’s Wine Kitchen is MICHELIN-listed, and the experience makes clear why. 

On the 27th floor of the Oasia Hotel Downtown, with views that sweep across the Tanjong Pagar skyline, OSO Ristorante has been making a case for Italian fine dining in Singapore since 2004. Co-founded by Stephane Colleoni and Diego Chiarini — waiter and cook respectively, both with an ownership stake that gives the restaurant its distinctly personal warmth — OSO runs on Chiarini’s founding philosophy: “Fresh food has 24 qualities, one each hour.” That commitment to ingredient timing and seasonal Italian produce shapes a concise menu anchored by a three-course lunch set and a five-course dinner. Private dining options include the intimate Antinori room, the Macallan room, and an alfresco poolside terrace — each suited to a different kind of occasion, from a quiet corporate lunch to a seated dinner for up to 100. 

Thirty-eight years and counting — Margarita’s Dempsey Hill has been the city’s go-to for Mexican cuisine since 1988, making it Singapore’s oldest Mexican restaurant by a considerable margin. The Dempsey Hill setting is a major part of the draw: high-beamed ceilings, decorative wrought iron, colourful Mexican artwork, and a spacious outdoor terrace that gives the whole place a relaxed, hacienda-like energy. The menu covers the full breadth of Mexican cooking with real range — birria tacos with chilli consommé, soft-shell crab tacos with chipotle aioli, mole poblano chicken with Puebla-style chocolate and chilli sauce, and pumpkin seed and crab crusted halibut in guajillo glaze. Margaritas are mixed with 100% blue agave tequila, and the Kitchen Sink burrito — chicken, beef, chorizo, cheese, salsa, and everything else — arrives exactly as promised. 

Set within The Warehouse Hotel — an Urban Redevelopment Authority-preserved heritage godown on the Robertson Quay waterfront — Po Restaurant is, in every sense, a tribute. Named after Popo, the Chinese word for grandmother, it celebrates Singapore’s Nanyang heritage by drawing from Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Peranakan culinary traditions, each dish prepared from scratch with locally sourced ingredients and time-honoured techniques. The dining room’s marble tables and 1970s-style globe pendant lamps lend a nostalgic warmth that the Wall Street Journal pinpointed when describing Po as a place known for embellishing homestyle classics. Seasonal specials — including the signature popiah and hakka stuffed oyster — celebrate the Lunar calendar’s most important moments with real care. The cocktail programme, crafted in The Warehouse hotel’s lobby bar with spices that echo the heritage menu, rounds out the experience. 

The rustic décor of Jiang-Nan Chun — designed to evoke the pastoral charm of China’s Jiang Nan river villages — sets a tone of quiet refinement from the moment of arrival. Housed within the Four Seasons Hotel Singapore along Orchard Road, this MICHELIN-recommended Cantonese restaurant is built around the principle of Xiang Le Zhu Yi: the enjoyment and happiness of dining well, whether for a family celebration, a business dinner, or an intimate occasion. Executive Chinese chef Alan Chan brings more than 30 years of fine-dining experience across Hong Kong and Singapore to the role, most recently earning a One Diamond distinction in the 2025 Black Pearl Restaurant Guide — recognition of a kitchen that reimagines Cantonese traditions through a modern lens without abandoning what makes them worth preserving. Chef Alan Chan’s signature set menu is the most direct way to experience it. Jiang-Nan Chun awaits.