Raffles Hotel

Raffles Hotel is the grand dame of Southeast Asian hospitality — a colonial white wedding cake of a building that has been hosting writers, royalty, and adventurers since 1887. Somerset Maugham wrote here. Rudyard Kipling drank here. A tiger was shot beneath the billiard table in 1902 (the last wild tiger killed in Singapore). The hotel survived the Japanese occupation, decades of development pressure, and a major renovation in 2019, and it remains the most atmospheric hotel in Asia.

The Singapore Sling was invented here in 1915 by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon, and the Long Bar — where the drink is still served — preserves the tradition of throwing peanut shells on the floor, which was considered the height of colonial informality in an era when Singapore was a buttoned-up trading port. The cocktail itself (gin, cherry liqueur, Cointreau, Bénédictine, pineapple juice, grenadine, lime, Angostura bitters) is more of a heritage experience than a great drink, but ordering one in the room where it was created is a ritual that the hotel has wisely preserved.

The hotel is open to non-guests for the bars, restaurants, shops, and a small museum on the third floor that traces its history through photographs, menus, and guest registers. The central courtyard — a tropical garden surrounded by the white colonial facades — is one of the most beautiful urban spaces in Singapore, and afternoon tea in the Tiffin Room (a tradition since the hotel opened) is the kind of experience that makes you temporarily believe the British Empire was a good idea.