A Luxurious Afternoon at Singapore’s ATLAS Bar

Atlas Bar

Before flying off to Singapore I asked for recommendations of what to see and do from an old workmate, who had visited the country a couple times before. Without her advice we would have most likely missed the highlight of our visit to Singapore – ATLAS Bar. So, thank you, Saila!

We even passed on Raffles Bar, the famous home of the drink called Singapore Sling, because of my friend’s recommendation and we don’t regret it at all. Anyway, to the ATLAS Bar. Bar is located in Parkview Square in one of the grandest and most expensive office buildings in Singapore. I didn’t check any details beforehand about the bar or the building so the whole time we thought the building was built in the 1920’s when Art Deco style was in fashion. But no, this impressive building was finished only in 2002. Not being an architecture buff, I could not tell the difference.

The money they must have spent to let’s say recreate a building like that and even the courtyard in front of the building was like an art gallery. The gigantic statues of men holding balls in their hands and other impressive statues, the gargoyles guarding the building and overall décor just spoke volumes of how much time and resources were used to create this marvel. The exterior surface of the building is clad in brown granite, bronze, lacquer, and glass, so I’ve been told by the internet. The building is sometimes referred to as the Batman building by locals because it reminds of Gotham City. The interiors drew HBO’s “Westworld” to use it as a filming location in season three of the dystopian science fiction series.

We had reserved an afternoon tea at 3 pm, so in we go. Reservations for the afternoon tea are always recommended because the bar can be fully booked. Inside of the ATLAS Bar was even more stunning. I couldn’t take my eyes off the centerpiece bar, the magnificent tower of gin, located at the far end of the area. The tower holds over 1300 gins and is two stories high. I can only guess how they get the bottles down from the tower. When we were present, I didn’t see any acrobats climbing the structure and flinging down bottles to bartenders.

We are not used to dining or drinking in opulent surroundings like this, but the staff made us feel very comfortable from the beginning. We had reserved afternoon tea, so tea we had. The 68 SGD order included a welcome drink, two types of tea or other soft beverages and a collection of savory and sweet bites. For a while we didn’t touch the food because we just wanted to look at the beautiful set up. We felt like king and queen for two hours with the service and everything we consumed. I haven’t googled yet what were the dishes we ate, for example vol-au-vent is not in my vocabulary, but they were delicious. Here is a list of them to those of you who are in the know.

Savory: coronation egg, brioche / lobster on crystal bread / smoked salmon rillette, vol-au-vent, kaluga caviar / tomato basil arancini / gougère, farmers bacon, comté / shrimp, rosatella espuma

Sweet: scones, jam and clotted cream / canelé de Bordeaux /popcorn cream cone | rhubarb tartlet, cinnamon streusel / blueberry choux /rhum baba | pistachio amaretti bonbon

There is also a picture of the page from the drink list – ATLAS Vintage – that listed different gins from 1910’s to present. I even passed my decade, the 60’s, because martini from that era would have been 125 SGD. Martini from 1910’s was 275 SGD. I have no idea if they would have made a difference. Does gin age like whiskey or cognac?

Stepping into ATLAS bar was like stepping back to the roaring twenties. Words can’t really express the experience we had at ATLAS Bar. So luckily, we have a few pictures to explain. Even though it felt like a crime to gawk and take pictures because of the serene and affluent atmosphere. But being layman/layperson, we got over the feeling really fast.

P.S. I never figured out what the Coke ad was doing in the building with its Chinese(?) motif but somehow it fit into the décor as well.

Text credit: Mara Sillanmäki