Singapore Clubbing and Nightlife

If money is no object, staying near the Marina in Singapore is a great choice. On one side you have the bizarrely mesmerizing Marina Bay Sands development, which includes a hotel, casino (note that the Chinese take their gambling very seriously), shops, a theater, a rooftop pool, a rooftop restaurant/bar/club (Cé La Vi), myriad celebrity-chef restaurants (try Daniel Boulud’s DB Bistro & Oyster Bar), and much more. Although MBS is fun to visit and certainly worth strolling through, you get more for your hotel money across the Marina at the Fullerton Bay Hotel.

Riverside Point across the river from Clarke Quay is a great place to sit with a cold drink to watch the world go by. Cafe Iguana is rather large and generic but the service is quick and the drinks are cold, which, on a casual night, is all you need.

A hotel whose name is instantly recognizable, the Raffles Singapore is pure colonial confection, a landmark maintained in its original style, with liveried Sikh door attendants greeting guests. Opened by two Armenian brothers in 1887 as a 10-room bungalow hotel overlooking the South China Sea—its address, 1 Beach Road, attests to the waterfront location before reclamation extended Singapore’s boundaries—it has since welcomed movie and music stars, authors, and heads of state. Somerset Maugham wrote, after a stay, “Raffles stands for all the fables of the exotic East.” At the end of World War II, it served as a transit camp for prisoners of war. A new wing and various extensions have turned Raffles into a little enclave, with pretty interior courtyards and a high-end shopping arcade with antique, art, fashion, and jewelry stores. Rooms come with butler service, 14-foot ceilings, verandas, Asian carpets, brass fittings, and glistening teak floors.