Category: Cafés
A gentle gloom envelops you the moment you step into Ceres Haus’ clandestine hideout. Sequestered on the second floor of one of Circular Road‘s rustic shophouses, this minimalist cafe overflows with an ethereal air.
There aren’t many bakeries as iconic in the local cafe scene as Bakery Brera, a stalwart fixture at Farrer Road that operates out of a compact shophouse unit, almost like a polished “HDB-downstairs bakery”, strikingly diminutive for an establishment of its stature and popularity.
Fate is a strange thing. It often leads you to the most serendipitous moments. My voyage to Alexandra Technopark had only a sole focus towards scouting the new Mooi Patisserie but —call it a coincidence or a stroke of luck— it led me to the quaint little unit that housed Sando, in a reunion of a lifetime.
Lunch hour in the CBD is the epitome of disorganisation where snaking queues and tissue-packet placeholders make their cameo and the office mob struggles to find a place to settle down for lunch. If you’re one of the CBD denizens looking for a quick fix, the new Surrey Hills Deli would check all the boxes.
The craft of a patissier is an artful calling where even the most understated pieces demand finesse. If fastidious ratios and intricate plating are points of appeal, then Tigerlily Patisserie’s resplendent creations will certainly make your heart skip a beat.
[Update: Mooi Patisserie has closed and reopened as Wren Cafe.] Unsurprisingly, we’ve seen a growing stable of chefs venturing out into their own cafes and F&B operations of late. Singapore’s pastries and cafe scenes are thriving after all, maybe growing even more robustly than the restaurant ecosystem. Inserting itself into the ranks of personally headed projects is Mooi Patisserie by Chef Gail Ho, a pastry chef who’d previously earned a Michelin star at Meta.
The narrative of Singapore’s F&B’s previous two years had been noticeably dominated by home-based concepts and celebrity chef debuts. Even after reaching what can only be described as a critical mass of trendy new openings though, there’s still no cafe in Singapore that embodies the dining paradigm as profoundly as Sourbombe Bakery.
When Singaporeans travel to Johor Bahru, there are always a few hotspots that everyone tends to hit up. Be it the trendy minimalist cafes of Mount Austin or the much-better-tasting KFC at City Square, there’s one perpetual hawker haunt that’s constantly on top of itineraries — Kam Long Curry Fish Head.
It’s well known that the French can be somewhat uppity when it comes to their proud culinary heritage. Hence it’s no small feat that Nonette, a Parisian Banh Mi deli, has become a huge hit on French home turf.
[Update: Pomme has closed.] Boat Quay is a rather curious place that is bustling with lunch hour spots and after-work drink spots but the cafe ecosystem here is rather weak, as cafes come and go fleetingly — even the local sandwich titans had some trouble with keeping their Cubano shop Onda afloat for long. Though a few cafes have seemingly taken root in the area, one of the promising ones is the new Pomme.
