New Bahru, by appetite: granola, crab curry or pizza

Sixty-odd brands in an old school. Arrive hungry for one thing or you will drift.

New Bahru suits one kind of visitor: the one who arrives already knowing what they want to eat. Decide first – granola at Dearborn, Sri Lankan crab at Kotuwa or pizza at Artichoke – and treat the rest of the campus as a bonus. The compromise is the choice itself. The old Nan Chiau High School on Kim Yam Road now holds more than 60 homegrown brands from The Lo & Behold Group across its blocks, corridors and school hall, and with the Factory Block open by May the final phase was complete, two years after the site first opened. Turn up without a plan and you will drift from corridor to corridor until everyone is hungry and cross.

Morning: Dearborn’s Breakfast Club

Go here if the day should start with something baked. Dearborn made its name with granola baked at its Everton Park headquarters, using organic oats and Grade A maple syrup. The New Bahru outpost is a different animal and the brand’s larger flagship: a dine-in Breakfast Club on the third floor, led by chef Christopher Kong, with a short menu, a micro-bakery and provisions to take home. The catch is the clock. It is walk-in only, Wednesday to Monday from 9am to 3pm (last orders 2.30pm), and shut on Tuesdays, so weekend brunchers should aim for opening time rather than hope for a table at the peak. Check the menu for current prices.

Evening (or weekend lunch): Kotuwa

This is the one worth crossing town for. Rishi Naleendra, the chef behind Cloudstreet, opened Kotuwa as a love letter to Sri Lanka and moved it to New Bahru in 2024; it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide. The name refers to Colombo’s central business district (in Sinhalese it means fort), and the cooking is not shy. Make crab the centre of the order – the menu does it several ways, a curry among them – and add hoppers, the crisp fermented-rice pancakes, to mop up the sauce. The ground floor has a proper cocktail bar, so it doubles as a drinks stop, and there is a set menu if you would rather hand over the decisions; check with the restaurant for the current price.

The back story earns its paragraph because it tells you how to order. Kotuwa opened in 2020 billed as Singapore’s first full-service Sri Lankan restaurant, with a menu nodding to the Portuguese, Dutch and British chapters of the island’s history: short eats (stuffed, fried snacks in the curry-puff family), curries and house-made sambols and preserves. It is food built for sharing, so if short eats are on when you go, order more of them than you think you need.

Anytime: Artichoke, now a pizza parlour

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The answer for a group that can’t agree. For years Bjorn Shen’s Artichoke was a cheerfully irreverent Middle Eastern restaurant that called its own cooking the “least authentic”; if that is the version you remember, update your files. At New Bahru, two doors from Kotuwa in the School Block, it is now Artichoke Pizza Parlor, which the complex sells as “new-school pizza with old-school soul”, drawing on the pizzerias of the ’80s and ’90s. Its own site goes further – “Pizza, but not the way Nonna made it” – and promises sambal, spice and crust with attitude. It is loud by design, so pick it for a slice and a beer, not a quiet catch-up, and check its hours before you go.

Around the meal

The shops keep their own hours, so don’t assume the whole campus runs on your restaurant’s clock. Add one or two stops – a browse, a coffee, a look at the restored school architecture – and leave it there. The Coconut Club has a New Bahru outpost too, if the group splits three ways and someone wants a fourth option.

Breakfast people go to Dearborn, spice people go to Kotuwa and the friend who wants a slice and a beer goes to Artichoke. It is the rare school where everyone picks their own lesson.

Good to know New Bahru is at 46 & 58 Kim Yam Road; it’s open daily but each business keeps its own hours. Dearborn (#03-04) is walk-in only, Wed–Mon 9am–3pm. Kotuwa (#01-03) opens Mon–Thu 6pm–11pm and Fri–Sun noon–11pm. Check Artichoke’s current hours and menu on its own site before you go.

Want more New Bahru? Here’s our full guide to eating at New Bahru…