Singapore

Raffles Singapore is the anchor: afternoon tea in the Tiffin Room, the Long Bar next door with its Singapore Sling, the Raffles Boutique selling kaya jam and pineapple tarts in tins. The Fullerton, in the old general post office on the river, pours its tea in a courtyard under a glass roof, and the Mandarin Oriental and the Capella on Sentosa add the modern palaces.

The boutiques are the story of the last decade. Cheryl Koh’s Tarte on Scotts Road makes fruit tarts with a French base and a Singaporean sense of ripeness; Janice Wong’s 2am:dessertbar turned plated dessert into a late-night art form; and in 2023 Cédric Grolet opened his first Southeast Asian boutique at COMO Orchard, bringing the Le Meurice sculpted fruit to the tropics. Fossa Chocolate, a bean-to-bar maker, gives the city its own cacao voice.

Singapore is humid, orderly and expensive in the right places. Afternoon tea sits around sixty euros, a pastry around seven, and everything comes with a cold room and an ice pack. Come in the cooler months from December to February, and end at least one day with a kaya toast and a kopi in a kopitiam: the local tea time, older than any hotel.