Singapore on a plate, from pushcart to tasting menu

Singaporeans argue about pepper. That alone should tell you there is no one definitive plate.

Choose by the company, not by the prestige. Song Fa for a visitor’s first taste of the city, The Coconut Club or Candlenut for a sharing table, and Labyrinth only if everyone can eat seafood and sit still for three hours. A hawker lunch and a tasting menu are not rungs on the same ladder; they are different ways of telling the same city’s story, which is why even the tourism board’s pitch runs from hawker and street food to zi char and modern Singaporean cooking. So no ranking here: four kitchens, each in its own register, and what each is good for.

The pushcart register: Song Fa Bak Kut Teh

The one to start with. Song Fa’s story begins in 1969, when founder Yeo Eng Song sold bak kut teh from a pushcart. Its style is Teochew: a clear, peppery-hot soup and tender pork ribs, the sort of bowl you sweat into and then ask for a refill of. More than half a century later, the New Bridge Road shop holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide. This is the everyday register: quick, unfussy and best with friends who don’t mind a queue, so go outside the lunch rush. If you want to understand why Singaporeans argue about pepper, start here.

The obsessive register: The Coconut Club

Some restaurants have a signature dish. The Coconut Club has a signature ingredient and has built its whole identity around it – the tagline is “people, heart and everything coconut” – and it holds a Bib Gourmand. Order the nasi lemak ayam goreng berempah. The Beach Road branch, in a restored Kampong Gelam shophouse, cooks its rice with White Sutera coconut milk and serves it with chicken marinated for 12 hours or charcoal-grilled barramundi otah, which is the kind of detail that tells you how seriously the kitchen takes rice. Finish with cendol. It is the register for a long, sociable lunch where everyone ends up talking about rice. There are several branches, so check which one you are booking.

The family register: Candlenut

Malcolm Lee’s Dempsey restaurant calls itself the world’s first Michelin-starred Peranakan restaurant, and it holds one star in the 2026 guide. The cooking goes back to his mother’s and grandmother’s recipes, with modern touches and an Indonesian influence. You can eat it two ways: à la carte, served communally the way a Peranakan family table would be, or as a tasting menu of more than ten courses that changes every three months, many of them single bites. For a group, take the communal route; the tasting menu suits two people with time. The room is high-ceilinged and calm, all bamboo and rattan.

The memory register: Labyrinth

Chef LG Han’s one-Michelin-star restaurant reinterprets Singapore’s food heritage, including dishes that are, in its own words, “fading from memory”. The tasting menu is served in a dim room hung with local art, vintage photographs and old kitchenware. Read the small print before you book, because it decides the evening: the menu is seafood-centric and can work around shellfish, but can’t accommodate vegan, vegetarian or coeliac diets, or dairy, gluten or allium allergies. Lunch runs about two hours and dinner about three, and it is the dearest meal on this list by a distance; check the current price with the restaurant. Dishes change with the seasons, so email for a sample menu if you like to know what’s coming.

How to choose

Match the register to the company and the appetite. A visiting friend who wants to taste the city in an afternoon? Song Fa, then a walk. A birthday table of eight? The Coconut Club or Candlenut’s communal menu. An anniversary with someone who loves a story behind each course and has no dietary restrictions? Labyrinth. Whatever you pick, do one meal properly rather than squeezing four into a day and remembering none of them.

Good to know Check current menus, hours and booking terms with each restaurant directly; Labyrinth publishes strict dietary limits, and Candlenut takes reservations through COMO Dempsey’s booking page. The Coconut Club lists Beach Road, Siglap, New Bahru and River Valley among its branches – confirm which one you’re booking.

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