Raffles Singapore

Raffles Singapore serves afternoon tea in the Tiffin Room under slow fans, sells kaya jam and pineapple tarts in the Raffles Boutique and keeps the Singapore Sling next door in the Long Bar.

The Sarkies brothers opened Raffles in 1887, Somerset Maugham and Kipling wrote about it, and the 2019 restoration gave the white colonial palace back its verandas and its tiffin curry. Afternoon tea in the Tiffin Room comes in two sittings with a tier of sandwiches, scones and pastries that include the Peranakan sweets of the island, and the Raffles Boutique in the arcade sells the hotel’s kaya jam, pineapple tarts and cakes in tins that have become the city’s gift of record. The pastry kitchen’s Christmas and Lunar New Year collections queue in the arcade.

Raffles is the ceremony of Singapore: white walls, the fans, the tea, and the Sling in the Long Bar with the peanut shells on the floor.