Singapore · Hotel Bar · Cocktails · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
I was in Singapore for work, and after the day wrapped, a few co-workers said let’s grab a drink. We walked across the Shangri-La lobby, ducked through a timber archway I almost missed, and sat down at Origin Grill and Bar. I didn’t realize until I had the menu open that this is one of Asia’s 50 Best Bars.
This article is not sponsored. Nothing was comped, and Origin Grill and Bar didn’t know I was going to write about them.
The Shangri-La Singapore sits in Tanglin, on Orange Grove Road, walking distance from the embassies and a short cab from Orchard. The lobby is the warm-up act. Cathedral ceilings, cream marble columns, a living green wall pouring down behind a black-stone reflecting pool, and a hand-carved wooden sphere bursting with flowers that I’d describe as the world eating a flower shop and calling it art. Origin Grill and Bar sits just off the main floor. You’d walk past it if you didn’t know to look for the timber arch and the small gold sign reading 源点, source point.
The Bar
Inside, the room feels less like a hotel bar and more like a private club. Soft light, arched walls, leather seating, and a back bar lined with the kind of spirit collection that tells you the menu is going to be serious. We grabbed a small table across from the bar with a perfect view of the room and the bartenders working. Good seat for people-watching the place fill up over the evening, easy seat for conversation in between. I’d come off a twenty-four-hour flight that morning, sat through a full day of meetings, and I knew I wasn’t going to be the one closing the place down. The pacing didn’t punish me for that. No nudging, no check on the bar before I asked for it, no flicked glance at the watch. I left after a couple drinks. The co-workers stayed late. Nobody at the bar was moving them along either.
The POV Menu
The cocktail program is called POV, subtitled The Way We See It. That’s the bar team’s polite way of warning you they’re about to reimagine every classic you think you know. The menu is a small bound book, each drink on its own page, with the bar’s own write-up of what they were thinking and a strong / sweet / bitter dial at the bottom. I flipped through it, landed on a page that said Saz-Air-Ak, read the description, and was done shopping.
The Saz-Air-Ak
Their take on a classic Sazerac. Michter’s rye, peach, lemon oleo saccharum, bitters, and absinthe air sitting on top of the glass instead of being used to rinse it out the traditional way. The bar’s own framing on the menu page: what if the smallest ingredient in a classic Sazerac becomes the star of the show. S$27 on the menu. Easy choice.
Tasting notes, honest: it’s Sazerac-forward, with the absinthe sitting front and center. If you like a Sazerac, you’ll love this. If you don’t, you won’t. The common reaction is that a drink built like this tastes a little like cough syrup, and I’m not going to pretend that’s wrong. It does, a bit. But that’s the profile, and the profile is the point. I had my first one of these years ago in New Orleans, so the territory wasn’t new. One was enough for the night, and I’m not someone who can order two of these back to back. But I liked it enough to order again the next time I’m in. I like different, and this is different.
The Build
Then the showmanship. A low scalloped tumbler set down on the Origin Bar coaster (the one that reads Pleasure, which lands harder once you’ve ordered the drink), the open POV menu underneath as a stage, a cloud of absinthe-laced foam spooned onto the rim of the glass, and the rye poured straight through the cloud. The foam slowly collapses into the drink as you sip. You smell the absinthe before the rye gets to you. That’s the whole trick.
The Second Round
After the Saz-Air-Ak I asked for a Boulevardier. Bourbon, sweet vermouth, Campari, stirred and served on one big rock of the correct ice. Perfectly balanced, no compromises, no fuss. Not on the POV menu, just a classic order off the back of the bar, and it landed. Easy second drink. Here’s the funny part: this is a gin bar, and I had two drinks that had nothing to do with gin.
It Tells You Where You Are
You see this on the wall as you walk in, before you even get to the host stand. A framed poster behind glass, Asia’s 50 Best Bars in big letters across the middle. I walked right past it on the way in, didn’t clock the significance until I was sitting with the menu open. By the time I left, I made a point to stop and look at it. My reflection is in the glass, leaning in next to the lettering. It tells you where you are. The bar’s way of saying who they are before you even sit down.
The Price
What I paid: the Saz-Air-Ak runs S$27 on the menu, which is roughly twenty US dollars. The Boulevardier was a classic order off the back of the bar, not a POV menu page, so I don’t have its exact price on hand. Not cheap. For a 50 Best bar with this kind of program, fair.
Would It Work for the Family?
This was a work trip, not a family trip, so Vika and the kids weren’t with me. The honest read: I wouldn’t bring the kids here. It’s not that the room is unfriendly to kids, it’s that the room isn’t built for kids. The pacing, the late-night arc, the price of a single drink. Not the vibe.
As a date night with Vika, this is a yes. She’d love it. The POV menu is full of pages she’d want to read cover to cover, and the bar can do anything off the menu if she wanted a classic instead. This is drinks done right. We’d take a table, each order something different, and let the room do its thing. I’ll report back the next time we’re in Singapore together.
The Verdict
Hotel bars get a bad rap, fairly often deserved. Bland, beige, overpriced, and built to push the same five drinks at people who didn’t want to walk anywhere else. Origin Grill and Bar is the opposite case. The Saz-Air-Ak is a real reimagining, not a gimmick stacked on a classic, and the Boulevardier proved they can do a perfectly balanced classic when you ask for one. The room knows what it is and doesn’t oversell it. This is not a hotel lobby bar. This bar is the destination.
Want to see the pour in motion? I posted a short clip from this visit on Instagram. Head over to @travelandfoodguy and check it out.
Have you been to Origin Grill and Bar, or do you have a Singapore cocktail bar Vika and I should check out next time we’re in town? Drop it in the comments. Always looking for the next date-night room.
