Singapore is a foodie paradise. Here's how to plan your days

SINGAPORE - Before we put on our aprons, Vidhya Nair takes us to the market.

We squeeze our way down the narrow aisles at the North Bridge Road Market & Food Centre in Singapore. They are packed with people bustling about beneath the bright neon lights.

The air is filled with the scent of lemongrass, mangoes, turmeric, fermented prawn paste and curry. And the stalls are neatly stacked with everything from red Asian bananas to shrivelled sea cucumbers, frog's legs, blue ginger and dragon fruit.

Nair is buying prawns and spices for our cookery class. She actually already has everything in her nearby studio -- but is taking us to the market so we can get an idea of what Singaporean cuisine is all about.

A Singaporean of Indian descent, Nair shows us the almost overwhelming variety of fish products and the dried prawn varieties at the stalls of Chinese traders.

And right next to them on offer: pork specialities from Sarawak, the Malaysian state in the north-west of the island of Borneo.

"Singaporean cuisine is special because it brings together many Southeast Asian dishes into a single culinary culture. It is a melting pot of Chinese, Malay and Indian cuisine," says Nair.

Back in her cooking studio, we get started on Laksa Nonya. Laksa is a spicy noodle soup dish from Southeast Asia that is particularly popular in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Laksa Nonya rice noodle version from Singapore features a creamy coconut milk broth with mildly spicy seasonings, dried prawns and fish cakes.

Flavor is all about balance

The Australian family taking part in the course sets about chopping chilies, Vietnamese mint, lemongrass, galangal, garlic, shallots and the laksa leaves, also known as Vietnamese coriander.

Sebastian Stahl, from Frankfurt, is assigned the task of frying the fresh prawns and the belacan prawn paste. Steam rises from pots, pans and woks. His wife Gisela prepares the fish paste and rice noodles under Nair's guidance.

But when it comes to the coconut milk broth, Nair makes it herself. "The balance is crucial. Too much coconut makes the soup heavy; too little robs it of its identity."

The couple from Frankfurt are delighted with the result. "Very aromatic and easy to make. We'll definitely be making this at home," says Gisela Stahl.

Everyone in the group is enjoying their first homemade laksa, which, incidentally, is Singapore's national dish. Laksa, Nair says, has its origins in the Chinese-Malay Peranakan fusion culture, which continues to shape Singapore's culinary culture to this day.

Singaporean cuisine also reflects its diverse population: around 75% of the city-state's inhabitants are of Chinese origin, 15% come from Malaysia and 10% from India.

Malcolm Lee also comes from a Peranakan family and still uses his mother's and grandmother's recipes -- to great popularity. And he does so successfully and with distinction. His Peranakan restaurant Candlenut has a Michelin star – the first establishment in the city-state to do so for this type of cuisine.

That makes Lee one of the best-known chefs in Singapore, a country so rich in fine dining that it has 42 Michelin-starred restaurants. But, he says, Peranakan cuisine is more than just a culinary culture. "It is cultural heritage, identity and family tradition."

Peranakan dishes are very complex, as they combine multiple influences and cooking techniques -– a balance of spicy, sweet, sour, salty and umami.

Cooking techniques from the former British, Dutch and Portuguese colonial powers also had a major influence here in Southeast Asia.

Crab balls cooked for four hours

Fittingly, the Candlenut in the Dempsey Hill area is housed in an old barracks complex of the British colonial army. Rattan fans suspended from the high ceilings provide relief from the tropical heat.

His Peranakan dishes are rooted in tradition but reinterpreted. One dish is called Sambal Telor. It's gently fried fresh squid with aromatic sambal paste.

He simmers crab balls for four hours in a rich bamboo chicken stock. He braises pork cheeks with shiitake mushrooms, dark soy sauce, chilli and coriander for almost three times as long.

One key ingredient in many of his creations is his house-made rempah paste. Using black, tropical buah keluak nuts, he gives many of his classic Peranakan dishes an earthy, nutty and slightly bitter flavor.

His restaurant is undoubtedly a flagship of Peranakan cuisine. Yet the unpretentious Michelin-starred chef openly admits, "If you want to get to know Singaporean cuisine, you have to feast your way through our hawker centers."

A slew of exciting restaurants serve excellent local cuisine. Behind the façade of a typical Singaporean corner shop lies Mama Diam, a first-class restaurant offering playful fusion cuisine.

At Bollywood Farm, in the green countryside surrounding Singapore, Lynn Ee conjures up seasonal creations from her own 4-hectare garden. Thanks to the climate she can grow exotic varieties of cabbage and vegetables, plus laksa leaves, lemongrass, curry leaves and Thai basil.

Street food stall with Michelin star

But it is in the hawker centers – halls without air conditioning but packed with countless food stalls and market stalls selling vegetables, fruit, meat and fish – that we find the throbbing culinary and social heart of Singapore. You can find several throughout the city.

The Maxwell Food Centre is famous for its Hainanese chicken rice dishes. At Hawker Chan in the Chinatown Complex Food Centre – the largest in Singapore with 260 stalls – there are always long queues. No wonder. With its chicken in soy sauce for just a few dollars, it became the world's first street food stall to receive a Michelin star.

Here, don't miss the classic Malay-Singaporean dessert, Ice Kacang. It is freshly shaved ice with sweet red beans, sweetcorn, diced peanuts and pieces of palm fruit. Or check out the streets nearby to find a slew of traditional Chinese tea houses.

At the Tekka Centre in the Little India district, you simply must try Indian-Malay specialities such as biryani rice dishes, dosa pancakes or roti prata flatbread dishes. The East Coast Lagoon Food Village is a hawker center right by the sea, which locals visit to eat fresh seafood.

Coffee-flavored pork ribs

Another popular alternative is the city-famous Chinese family seafood restaurant Keng Eng Kee. It feels like a market and you sit in plastic chairs and use plastic cutlery. But try the spicy chilli crab, the star of the show. Funnily enough, a meat dish is also one of the restaurant's classics – spicy caramelized pork ribs flavored with coffee.

One of Singapore's most beautiful hawker centers is Lau Pa Sat, situated in the heart of the business district between Raffles Place and Marina Bay. It's a historic market hall housed in a 19th-century Victorian building.

Many stalls specialize in stingray grilled in banana leaves. In the evening, satay skewers of chicken, beef, lamb, fish or scampi sizzle on countless charcoal grills. Even the surrounding streets start to transform into open-air barbecues.

In the Malay-Muslim district of Geylang Serai in the east of the city, the Hawker Centre of the same name is a real treasure trove for fans of Malay and Indonesian cuisine.

In the evenings, it is mainly locals who gather here to enjoy Nasi Lemak (coconut rice with anchovies, peanuts, egg and spicy sambal sauce) or Rendang (slow-cooked, spicy beef in coconut milk).

It was precisely this food culture and the markets as culinary meeting places that prompted UNESCO to designate Singapore's hawker center culture as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020.

Culture, like love, goes through the stomach – and in Singapore, you'll find it particularly delightful.

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This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 1:04 AM.