Writers Bar

Raffles has two house cocktails. Everyone knows the Sling; the other one is in a Somerset Maugham story.

Writers Bar is where to drink at Raffles if you want the history without the Long Bar's peanut shells. It suits a civilised hour before dinner or a show in the Civic District, or the friend who packs three novels for a weekend away. The compromise is that this is Raffles, so dress for it and budget for it. Order the Million Dollar Cocktail and leave the Sling to everyone else.

The other Ngiam Tong Boon cocktail

Ngiam Tong Boon invented the Singapore Sling, which is the drink most visitors come to Raffles for. He also made the Million Dollar Cocktail – gin, sweet vermouth, pineapple, lemon, egg white and grenadine, shaken to a froth – which turns up in Somerset Maugham's The Letter. It is the signature here, made with Raffles 1915 Gin by Sipsmith, Mancino Rosso vermouth and Scrappy's aromatic bitters. For something simpler there is a gin and tonic on the same 1915 gin, with its jasmine, kaffir lime leaf, nutmeg and cardamom.

A menu arranged by author

The bar is the hotel's tribute to the writers who have checked in over the past century. Raffles credits Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad with starting the tradition, and the room, in the front corner of the Grand Lobby, is dressed in brass, books and literary mementos. The menu follows suit: highballs under Maugham, wine cocktails under Kipling, bold spirit-led drinks under Conrad, colourful negronis under Pablo Neruda and after-dinner drinks under Noël Coward, with chapters for André Malraux, James Michener and Pico Iyer, the hotel's first writer-in-residence. The newest section belongs to the poet Madeleine Lee, the first Singaporean to hold the residency, whose collection How to Build a Lux Hotel inspired five cocktails. Read it by writer rather than by spirit; that is the whole conceit, and it is a good one.

How to do it well

The dress code is casual chic: collared shirts and trousers for men, and no flip-flops or slip-ons for anyone. On a kind evening, ask for the Palm Terrace by Writers Bar, on the eastern portico overlooking Palm Court, which pours the same list outdoors. Go early in the evening, when a quiet lobby bar is at its most useful; it opens at 5pm. City Hall and Esplanade MRT are a short walk, and the stroll back through the Civic District afterwards is part of the point (a Million Dollar Cocktail is not a drink to rush to the train after).

Good to know Writers Bar is in the front corner of the Grand Lobby, Raffles Hotel, 1 Beach Road. Casual-chic dress code: collared shirts and trousers for men, no flip-flops or slip-ons. City Hall and Esplanade MRT are a short walk.

Writers Bar | Raffles Hotel Singapore, 1 Beach Road, Singapore 189673 | Nearest MRT: City Hall, Esplanade