Best Pubs in Singapore: Where Locals Actually Drink

I have lived in Singapore for eleven years, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is that the best pubs in Singapore are almost never the ones filling up travel magazines. They are the places your Uber driver recommends after a long shift, the dimly lit shophouses where older uncles nurse craft beers beside university students splitting pitchers of cheap lager, and the heritage lounges that have quietly survived three rounds of rent hikes because the regulars refused to let them disappear. What follows is not a curated list of the polished rooftop bars you will find in a hotel concierge booklet — every single place here is somewhere I have personally sat, ordered, and argued about football scores. These are the spots where locals actually drink, where the conversation flows as easily as the draft taps, and where the city's complicated, honest personality comes alive in a cold glass.

1. The Horse's Mouth: Robertson Quay's Best Kept Craft Beer Secret

You almost walk past it twice because the signage is deliberately modest, shunted alongside the louder, louder restaurants that line the Singapore River in Robertson Quay. But duck inside The Horse's Mouth and you will find a bar that has quietly been pouring rotating craft taps since the early 2010s, back when the craft beer wave in Singapore was still just a ripple. What separates this place from the dozens of bars that popped up during the craft beer boom last decade is that most of those bars are now gone. The Horse's Mouth survived because the owner, a quiet man named Kiat who you might spot reading behind the bar on weeknights, treats every batch personally.

Inside, the industrial-chick aesthetic — Edison bulbs, exposed conduit pipes, a long communal oak table — feels genuinely worn-in rather than Instagrammed into existence. I visited on a rainy Thursday last week and sat at the far counter, two seats from the window that overlooks the river. The team had just put on a new batch of local brewery Lion City Meadery's ginger mead alongside a handful of guest taps from Malaysian microbreweries — something you rarely see in a Singapore bar. I ordered the mead and a plate of their cured meat board, which came with pickled mustard seeds and a proper sourdough from a tiny bakery in Tanjong Pagar. We talked about how Robertson Quay has changed since the 1990s, when the entire quay was a sleepy row of godowns. Kiat pointed to the building across the river and told me the old warehouses had been storing spices and rubber before the government turned the area into the polished nightlife strip it is today. That sense of layered history is what makes this river stretch one of the best pubs in Singapore for people who want to drink and also understand the city a little better.

Local Insider Tip: "Go on a Monday or Tuesday night. The bartender has the freedom to pull off-menu samples and experiments on slow nights, and you might get to try something that never makes it to the regular board. Tell Kiat you are a first-timer and pour weird stuff; he likes opening unpredictable things for curious people."

The real charm here is that nobody rushes you. You can sit with a 300ml pour for two hours and nobody checks a seat timer. The one honest complaint I will make is that the air conditioning can be set a touch too high, especially near the front door on busy Friday nights — bring a light cardigan if you run cold.

2. Good Beer Company on Circular Road: The Growler Fill Station That Became a Neighborhood Institution

There is a particular kind of bar in Singapore that started out small, maybe just a shopfront selling bottled imports, and then accidentally turned into the living room of the neighborhood. Good Beer Company on Circular Road is exactly that kind of accident. When it first opened, it was essentially a craft beer retail counter with a tasting station. Now it is a place where the post-work crowds on Circular Road cluster at the pavement tables with plastic stools and tall-boy cans, and where you might spot a group of regulars in Blangah Rise HDB shorts holding actual tasting notes comparing two hazy IPAs.

I dropped by last Wednesday around seven, right after the work crowd surge, and the owner was in the middle of replacing their rotating taps. They have about fifteen taps at any given time, with a strong emphasis on Pacific Northwest American breweries, a few daring Japanese options, and always at least two local Singapore and Southeast Asian brews — which I appreciated a lot. I ordered a glass of a smoky porter that had no visible branding on the glass because it was an exclusive keg a regular had sourced from a Taiwanese brewery and offered to share in the tap line. That kind of thing does not happen at corporate bars.

Circular Road sits right between the old Chinatown conservation area and the financial district, and you can feel that identity in the patrons. In one hour I watched a table of expat bankers at one end and a group of local retirees who had walked over from the Kreta Ayer hawker center at the other, all of them introduced by a shared appreciation for good beer. The area has been a trading link for Chinese, Malay, and Indian merchants since Stamford Raffles first drew his town plan. Good Beer Company fits nicely into that tradition of cross-cultural exchange, except the currency is hops.

Local Insider Tip: "Check their social media feed on Saturday morning. They sometimes post about 'secret flash taps' — small experimental kegs they put on late Saturday afternoon that are gone by early evening. The Saturday evening crowd is more chill than Friday, and the owner is more pour-friendly when the pressure is lower."

The pavement seating gets uncomfortable after a couple of hours because the plastic stools are not exactly designed for comfort. On hot days the nearby gutters can also be pungent since this is a low spot near the river. But for a quick, no-genuine-plan session, it is unbeatable.

3. Rabbit Carrot Gun on Hong Kong Street: The Swanky-Top Bar Singapore Locals Actually Pretend Is Too Expensive

Every neighborhood has one bar that people whisper about as "the fancy one," but then they go anyway because the food and drinks are genuinely outstanding. In Hong Kong Street, just a short walk from Clarke Quay but far enough that you dodge the worst of the tourist bottleneck, Rabbit Carrot Gun is that place. It occupies a high-ceilinged shophouse that used to be part of a printing district in the 1970s, and the kitchen still operates out of what I am told was the original loading bay at the back.

The cocktails here lean heavily on Asian ingredients, and not in a gimmicky pandering way. Their kaya toast sour — made with coconut pandan syrup, egg white, and Japanese whisky — is something I have tried to recreate at home successfully zero times. On my last visit I sat at the bar counter on a Friday, ordered the sour alongside their five-spice roasted duck breast sliders, and watched the bartender work through orders with the speed of someone who has done this ten thousand times. The second floor is quieter and used for private events, but the main ground floor bar is where the actual energy is.

The cocktail program changes seasonally, but certain house signatures stay year-round, and the staff is trained to steer first-timers toward what their mood matches. I appreciated that the bartenders here do not upsell; when I asked about their most expensive bottle this time, the bartender recommended a mid-range Japanese whisky over the top-shelf option and honestly said the value was better for a two-person tasting. That is atypically direct in the Singapore bar scene.

Local Insider Tip: "Take the back stairs near the restroom to the tiny mezzanine ledge above the main bar. It is not an official seating area, but after the nine o'clock rush, regulars lean against that ledge and order drinks while looking down at the bar. It gives you a perfect view of the bartenders working and a more private conversation spot."

Rabbit Carrot Gun is not cheap — expect to pay Singapore cocktail-bar prices that are honestly among the steepest in Asia. But the precision of the drinks and the quality of the food make it one of the top bars Singapore has to offer if you want atmosphere and craft in equal measure. Parking near Hong Kong Street is essentially nonexistent after six p.m., so grab a taxi or rideshare.

4. No. 5 Emerald Hill: The Peranakan Shophouse Bars Where Singapore's Nightlife Partying History Started

If you want to understand the broader history of where to drink in Singapore, you have to walk down Emerald Hill Road. This strip of restored Peranakan shophouses at the edge of Orchard Road was, in the early 2000s, one of the first clusters of bars to open in Singapore after the government relaxed entertainment licensing in previously residential conservation areas. Before Emerald Hill, the main drinking destinations were hotel lobby bars and the hard-partying loops around Clarke Quay. Emerald Hill was the first place where young professionals could duck into a beautiful old conservation shophouse and feel like they had discovered a 1920s cocktail den hidden behind orchid motifs and carved timber doors.

Today the strip still carries that energy. Several bars operate side-by-side in adjacent shophouses, and the street transforms into an informal outdoor block party on Friday and Saturday nights. Last Saturday I walked through around 8:30 p.m. and paused at a place at Emerald Hill's no. 5 address that has been serving gin-based cocktails since before most of the city's trendy gin bars even existed. The interior is low-ceilinged, tiled in original Peranakan blue, and furnished with antique wooden furniture you can tell was sourced from old Malay households. I ordered their house gin tonic with homemade citrus cordial, sat on the bench outside, and watched neighborhood residents in shorts walk past holding grocery bags next to groups of young party-goers in heels. That collision of old and new Singapore is the entire point of this street.

Emerald Hill was originally a nutmeg plantation in the 1830s, and the drainage pattern of the hillside still reflects the old property lines. Once you know that, the way the bars slope gently downward toward the city center suddenly makes poetic sense, as if the street itself tilted the party downhill.

Local Insider Tip: "Arrive before seven p.m. on a Friday. You can walk into almost any bar on the strip without waiting and grab an outdoor bench. After 8:30 p.m. every seat is taken and the crowd spills into the street. If you must come late, head toward the no. 5-adjacent courtyard at the back; there are always two or three loose tables the main crowd overlooks."

Some of the bars on this strip have thin walls, so if you are seated near the partition between two venues, you will hear both sound systems at once. On humid nights the open-air seating also attracts mosquitoes, so slap on repellent or stay indoors.

5. Sago House on Sago Street in Chinatown: The Speakeasy-Style Pub Inside a Dentist's Office History

Tucked between rows of funeral parlors and traditional Chinese medicine shops on Sago Street, Sago House operates out of a shophouse that was, if the older Chinatown residents are to be believed, a dental clinic until the early 2000s. The sign outside is intentionally almost invisible; you are looking for an unmarked door or a faded plaque indicating the address, and if you know it, you know it. Inside, the basement level has been converted into a low-lit basement pub with low ceilings and exposed stone walls.

The cocktail menu is built around Southeast Asian ingredients that most bar people outside the region have encountered only as garnishes: calamansi, blue pea flower, bird's eye chili-infused vodka. I visited last Monday, the quietest night of the week, and had the full attention of the bartender, who walked me through their house calamansi rum sour while explaining that the limes are sourced from a farm in Johor Bahru just across the Singapore border. Over two hours I spent perhaps thirty Singapore dollars on drinks, which for a basement bar in central Chinatown is almost absurdly reasonable.

Sago Street itself was, in previous generations, the site of Chinese funeral services and later the more notorious parts of Chinatown's so-called "death houses" of the early twentieth century. Knowing that this basement bar now serves drinks above ground that once held so much grief has always given the area a paradoxically uplifting drinker's energy. The old trades did not die here; they transformed, much like Singapore's entire identity shifted from colonial port to independent city.

Local Insider Tip: "Do not announce yourself at the door. Just walk in like you have been there before. The unattended front door is intentional; the bar staff prefer this approach and will seat you faster if you act like a regular rather than a confused tourist reading Google Maps with your flashlight on."

The basement space has limited air circulation, and on a busy Friday the warmth from the crowd can make it feel stuffy after an hour. Also, the tiny restroom near the service entrance is something you navigate with care if you have had two cocktails.

6. The Great Mischief on Armenian Street: Where Craft Cocktails Meet Heritage Conservation

The Great Mischief sits on Armenian Street, directly in the shadow of the National Gallery Singapore, and it serves one of the few Mexican-inspired cocktail menus you will find anywhere in the country. It opened in a former textbook warehouse, and the owners kept the exposed concrete floors, the industrial mezzanine shelving, and much of the original shop frontage. The mezcal collection behind the bar might be the largest publicly listed one in the central area.

I went on a Sunday evening, which is an unexpected gem of a night here. The crowd was a mix of post-brunch stragglers from nearby Middle Road and a handful of local bartenders from other bars who clearly use this as their industry hangout. I ordered a smoked pineapple mezcal margarita and elote-inspired Mexican street corn from their kitchen, and chatted with the bartender about the largely unnoticed Armenian contribution to Singapore's founding. The Armenian Church, just a two-minute walk away, is one of the oldest churches in Singapore, built by merchants who arrived here with very little and built extraordinary institutions from scratch. The Great Mischief pays quiet homage to that story in its refusal to gentrify the warehouse space beyond what the drinks require.

Local Insider Tip: "Sit at the high counter along the wall opposite the bar. From that seat you can watch the bartenders prepare their mezcal pours, which they do with a small flame and a pipette, and also catch the cross-breeze from the front and back doors, which keeps you cool without the air conditioning blasting your face."

The cocktails are mid- to premium-priced, and it is easy to accidentally spend more than planned if you get into the mezcal flights. And on Tuesday or Wednesday nights the kitchen closes early, so if your plan pairs the cocktails with food, come between Thursday and Sunday.

7. Candlenut on Burghley Drive: The Pub-Adjacent Drinking Den of Singapore's Michelin-Starred Peranakan Kitchen

Candlenut is technically a restaurant. But the bar counter inside, tucked into a corner of its Dempsey Hill colonial bungalow setting, is one of the most fascinating places to drink in Singapore precisely because the cocktails are designed to pair with Peranakan cuisine, and because the bar scene here at Dempsey Hill is sparse enough that people who know the area treat this bar counter as the local tap.

Dempsey Hill itself was originally a nutmeg plantation shared with a British military barracks, and the compound of black-and-white colonial bungalows clustered around a rubberwood grove gives the area a jungle-station feel that disappears the moment you cross Holland Road into the City. Candlenut sits in the quieter far end of the compound, away from the main restaurant and gallery strip, and the bar counter faces a small garden where you can hear real birdsong — a detail I had forgotten was possible on this island.

I visited mid-afternoon on a Saturday, when the late-lunch crowd had thinned and the dinner rush had not started. The bartender poured me a gin-based aperitif made with local butterfly pea flower and a splash of coconut cream, explained that the recipe had been in development for months, and told me the Peranakan kitchen could serve small bar snacks even though the main tasting menu was in full swing. We discussed how the Peranakan communities here, those "Straits-born" Chinese who married into Malay, Indian, and Eurasian families over generations, created an entire creole culture that is now one of Singapore's most potent symbols of national identity. Candlenut is the first Michelin-starred Peranakan restaurant in the world, and the fact that it serves its national culture at this level is something worth toasting.

Local Insider Tip: "Book a bar seat between 3 and 5 p.m. on weekends. This is the gap between lunch and dinner, so the kitchen can do bar snacks for you, and the bartender is not rushed. It is the only time you can realistically sit at the counter and have a real conversation without competing with dinner seating noise."

Parking at Dempsey is tight on weekend evenings, though mid-afternoon is manageable. And the garden proximity does mean insects are part of the experience; I had a small moth land in my drink once, and the bartender replaced it without hesitation and with a completely straight face.

8. The Secret Mermaid on Cecil Street: The Financial District Oasis That Closes Too Early

The Secret Mermaid is a wine-focused bar in the heart of Singapore's financial district on Cecil Street, and it does something unusual in a city of rules: it feels genuinely relaxed. The selection is almost entirely Old World wines, with strong French and Italian lists, and the owner sources small-production bottles from family vineyards rather than supermarket-distributed labels. The interior is warm wooden tones, soft jazz rather than the thumping bass of nearby Boat Quay bars, and conversation is the primary entertainment.

I went for an after-work visit on a Thursday, and the crowd was overwhelmingly local office workers who clearly had this bookmarked as their escape from the louder pub options in the surrounding block. I was offered a glass of white Burgundy and a small plate of house-made charcuterie, and the bartender spent a good ten minutes walking me through the wine's vineyard context before pouring. The establishment has no social media presence worth noting, and nearly everyone I talked to said they had found it by being walked there by a colleague.

Cecil Street's history as the nerve center of trade and law — the original Singapore Police Force headquarters and the old mercantile exchanges were clustered along this short stretch — gives it a gravity that makes a wine bar like this feel like it belongs. The financial district here is where decisions about the region's wealth were made for generations, and having a bar where those decisions can be quietly debated over good wine rather than craft beer feels true to the address.

Local Insider Tip: "The bar opens at 4 p.m. on weekdays and closes by 10:30 p.m. Do not plan a late night here; it is strictly an after-work institution. But within that window, request the seat near the back shelf where they keep a small handwritten list of off-menu bottles. Those are wines from personal imports, and pouring them is a quiet shared special between recognition-aware guests."

There is no kitchen to speak of; the bar snacks are small and cannot substitute for dinner. And on some weeks the wine-by-the-glass menu is limited on Mondays and Tuesdays due to deliveries.

When to Go and What to Know About Local Pubs in Singapore

Drinking in Singapore is not cheap, and the local pubs Singapore residents actually frequent reflect that reality. Expect to pay anywhere from twelve to twenty Singapore dollars for a craft beer pour and sixteen to twenty-eight for a proper cocktail in most of the venues listed above. Wine bars and the more premium cocktail rooms charge more. Happy hours, where they exist, usually run from 4 to 7 p.m. and represent the single best value window in the city for after-work drinking. Most pubs here close by midnight on weekdays and 1 or 2 a.m. on weekends, which is earlier than many visitors expect.

Tipping is not expected at local pubs, in contrast to hotel bars where a service charge is often added. Cash is still accepted almost everywhere, though PayNow, Singapore's local instant payment system, has become as standard as card taps. If you are visiting from abroad, get a local EZ-Link card or a contactless bank card for MRT travel between venues. Public transit stops at about 12:30 a.m., so plan rideshares strategically if you are bar-hopping late.

The legal drinking age is eighteen, and laws surrounding public intoxication are enforced with Singapore's characteristic quiet firmness — basically, you are fine as long as you are not a nuisance. Remember that drinking on MRT trains and buses is banned by law. Smoking is not permitted in pub indoor areas, and the designated smoking area or outdoor terrace is where you will find the smoking crowd.

For the best experience at any of these places, respect that Singapore's drinking culture is more conversation-and-craft oriented than the party-binge scene some visitors expect. The people at the bar next to you might have been stopping at that same stool every Friday for six years. Stay open to that connection, and the best pubs in Singapore will reveal themselves to you the way they did to me.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Singapore expensive to visit? Give a realistic daily budget breakdown for mid-tier travelers.**

A mid-tier traveler spending a full day in Singapore can expect to budget around 150 to 250 Singapore dollars per day, including accommodation in a decent hotel (120 to 180 dollars), meals at hawker centers and casual restaurants (20 to 50 dollars), public transport (5 to 10 dollars), and a moderate amount of drinks or attractions (20 to 50 dollars). Alcohol specifically is heavily taxed; a pint of draft beer at a regular pub costs between 12 and 20 dollars.

Are there any specific dress codes or cultural etiquettes to keep in mind when visiting local spots in Singapore?

Most local pubs in Singapore have no formal dress code. Smart casual is universally acceptable, and flip-flops and shorts are common in casual bar settings like hawker-center-adjacent pubs. Upscale cocktail lounges and rooftop bars may require covered shoes and collared tops for men. It is considered rude to take up seats at a crowded rooftop bar without ordering, and locals wait patiently for tables rather than rushing them.

How easy is it is to find pure vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based dining options in Singapore?

Singapore has a rapidly growing plant-based dining scene. Most vegetarian and vegan restaurants are concentrated in areas like Little India, Tanjong Pagar, and the East Coast. Dedicated vegan establishments number over 100 as of recent counts. Pure vegetarian food is also widely available at Indian restaurants and Buddhist vegetarian hawker stalls across the island, usually costing 5 to 10 dollars per meal.

What is the one must-try local specialty food or drink that Singapore is famous for?

The Sling, first created at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel in 1915, remains the most internationally recognized Singapore drink. For food, chicken rice is widely considered the national dish. A plate of chicken rice from a quality hawker stall typically costs between 4 and 7 Singapore dollars and is available at almost every food court and hawker center islandwide.

Is the tap water in Singapore safe to drink, or should travelers strictly rely on filtered water options?

Tap water in Singapore is safe to drink directly from the tap. The national water agency, PUB, treats and tests water to World Health Organization standards. Restaurants and pubs serve tap water by request. There is no practical need for travelers to purchase filtered or bottled water for consumption purposes, though bottled water is readily available at all convenience stores for about 1 to 2 dollars per bottle.