Where to Stay in Singapore

2026-05-23 · By Splendid

In: Singapore · Hotels

Singapore rewards staying close to its layers. The city sits at the intersection of colonial heritage, modernist ambition and one of the most considered hospitality traditions in Asia, and the hotels reflect that. Some pull you into the old town's verandas and ceiling fans. Others draw you into glass and shadow above the bay. The six here are the ones we'd put our name beside, in the order we'd stay them.

What follows is the Splendid list. Six hotels chosen for the architecture, the atmosphere and the small details that make a stay sit with you long after you've left. From a thirty-acre estate on Sentosa to a tower of sky gardens at the top of Orchard, each is doing something the others aren't. Photography for each is shot through the lens of Splendid.

Where to begin depends on what you're here for. For a first visit, Raffles and the Capitol Kempinski sit in the Civic District, within walking distance of the museums, the river and the Singapore most travellers come to see. For architecture, Pan Pacific Orchard and the Warehouse Hotel are the two boldest addresses on the list — one carved vertically into the sky, the other a hand-restored godown by the river. For a honeymoon, or any stay where the hotel is the destination rather than the base, nothing matches Capella's thirty acres on Sentosa. And for Orchard's greenery and shopping without the mall-hotel feeling, the Singapore EDITION is the one to book. None here asks you to trade away the thing you came for.

CAPELLA SINGAPORE

Capella sits on thirty acres of Sentosa rainforest, an estate of restored colonial bungalows and Foster + Partners curves wrapped around three infinity pools. A Leading Hotels of the World property, and one of the few addresses in Singapore that earns the affiliation outright. The original Tanah Merah residences, two former British Army quarters from the 1880s, have been pulled into the property like quiet anchors, and the new architecture meets them with a discipline that feels rare for a hotel of this scale.

The service is the quietest in the city, a kind of attentiveness that anticipates rather than performs. We'd come for the privacy, the long walks to the spa under the rain trees, and the food: breakfast at Fiamma, where the morning light spills across linen and the Italian kitchen turns out the kind of pastries you'd cross town for; long lazy lunches by the pool; and dinner at Cassia, where the kitchen treats Cantonese tradition like a serious discipline. Stay in a Sentosa Suite if you can — the views over the treetop canopy out to the sea more than justify the upgrade.

capellahotels.com

RAFFLES SINGAPORE

The grande dame still holds. After the 2019 restoration the suite-only property reads as polished as any modern five-star, but the verandahs, the Long Bar, the Tiffin Room are all still intact, and all still essential. There is a particular pleasure in walking through Bras Basah Park, past the white colonnades, and arriving at a hotel that was already legendary before half its current peer group existed. Every suite comes with a dedicated 24-hour butler, a service quietly looked after for generations and one of the small details that still sets Raffles apart.

The Personality Suites are the ones to ask for, each named for a writer or statesman who stayed in the original room. Order the Singapore Sling at the Long Bar at least once, in keeping with the tradition. Take afternoon tea in the Grand Lobby. Dine at Butcher's Block in the Raffles Arcade for some of the best wood-fired cooking in the city, or the Tiffin Room for its long-running North Indian menu. Spend an hour in the courtyard beside the iconic blue fountain, and you'll understand why this hotel still anchors the city.

raffles.com

THE CAPITOL KEMPINSKI SINGAPORE

Two restored heritage landmarks, the 1933 Capitol Building and the 1904 Stamford House, converted into a Leading Hotels of the World property that feels more like a private members' club than a corporate luxury chain. The interiors are dark wood, brass, ceiling heights that give every room a sense of occasion. Olivier Lapidus designed the rooms with a soft, residential touch: beds dressed like a private home, marble bathrooms with deep tubs, the kind of finishes that feel built rather than installed.

Central, walkable to Raffles Place, with the city's most generous suites for the price. 15 Stamford by Alvin Leung is the standout restaurant on the property: modern Asian cooking with the Demon Chef's signature edge. La Scala holds the Italian end, and Frieda the German bierhaus for less ceremonious nights. The Capitol Theatre next door, a restored 1930s Art Deco landmark that anchors the wider complex, programs a quiet mix of indie cinema, live music and small-scale performance, a rare adjacency for a luxury hotel. Stay in a Stamford Suite for a stunning, spacious heritage suite, as featured in the images below.

lhw.com

THE WAREHOUSE HOTEL

On the Singapore River in Robertson Quay, this former godown has been converted into a 37-room design hotel, a member of Design Hotels within the Marriott Bonvoy collection, with timber beams, exposed brick and one of the best bars in the city. The original 1895 warehouse structure has been preserved with archaeological care, every beam and cast-iron column intact. Smaller in scale than the grand hotels but ambitious in design, with rooms that feel closer to a Brooklyn townhouse than a Marina tower.

Po, the in-house restaurant, serves a modern Singaporean menu rooted in heritage technique; the kueh pie tee and chilli crab toast are house signatures worth ordering. The lobby bar, with its restored timber and slow cocktails, is where the city's design crowd gathers on weeknights. We'd come here for a slower stay than the Marina hotels permit, with long mornings by the river and an afternoon walking the Quay.

designhotels.com

THE SINGAPORE EDITION

Ian Schrager's Singapore opening sits on Cuscaden Road off Orchard, just behind the old St Regis. Pared back, light-filled, plant-heavy. The EDITION signature applied to the local climate. The lobby opens into a soaring planted atrium that doubles as the building's signature feature. Rooms have private balconies set into the greenery; the executive suites step further out, with daybeds that face the canopy.

The rooftop pool sits at the centre of an open-air orchid garden, with views over the Botanic Gardens. FYSH on the lobby level is the standout restaurant: modern seafood, considered cocktails, a room that hums in the evening. The Punch Room upstairs is the bar to book: small, dark and serving some of the most considered cocktails in town. For the design-led traveller who wants Orchard's convenience without the mall-hotel atmosphere.

editionhotels.com

PAN PACIFIC ORCHARD

WOHA's architectural showpiece: four sky-high open-air gardens stacked into a single tower at the top of Orchard. Each garden (Beach, Forest, Garden, Cloud) opens to the sky, with the building's facade carved away to admit weather, wind and light. The Beach terrace holds the swimming pool and the gym alongside it, with Aqua Bar serving guests poolside and inside. Mosella on the Forest terrace, at lobby level, is the destination restaurant: modern Mediterranean with the open-air canopy framing the view, and where breakfast is laid out each morning. The Garden terrace adds Park90, a quiet wine lounge, alongside the Pacific Club Lounge for suite and club-room guests, who take a private breakfast there. The Cloud terrace at the very top is left to the sky.

The rooms are simpler than the public spaces suggest: spare, well-finished, with the same attention to natural ventilation that drives the architecture. The most visually radical hotel in Singapore, and a study in how tropical hospitality can be built vertically. Worth a stay for any architect, designer or anyone who has ever walked past Marina Bay Sands and thought there had to be another way.

panpacific.com

AND ON THE HORIZON

AMAN SINGAPORE

Aman has been quietly working toward Singapore for years, and the property is now within sight. When it opens, it will join the brand's small constellation of urban Amans (Tokyo, New York, Bangkok) and fill what has long felt like the last meaningful gap in Singapore's hotel landscape. Worth marking the calendar.

aman.com

STAYING CONNECTED

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Singapore rewards the considered stay. These six addresses are the ones we send friends to and the ones we return to ourselves: each a different way to read the city, each a place we'd put our name beside. From the rainforest quiet of Capella, to the heritage weight of Raffles, to the architectural daring of Pan Pacific Orchard, this is Singapore through the Splendid lens. If you're staying long enough to shop, the city's design talent is worth seeking out too; start with Lisa Von Tang's atelier at New Bahru. We'll keep this edit alive as the city opens new chapters, and as we walk into them ourselves.

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Splendid's book of cinematic hotels, Hotel Diaries, is available in print and digital editions.