|Places| cuts of meat |Places| cuts of meat from the “World’s Greatest Butcher”, Dario Cecchini, and a late-night cocktail bar, all of which combine to make this somewhere you want to hang around. Hot on The Mondrian’s heels came the Pan Pacific Orchard (panpacific.com), a 23-storey high-rise spliced with four enormous open-air sky terraces. Replete with waterfalls and more than 7,300 square metres of tropical ivy, creepers, hibiscus, pandanus and palms, it wouldn’t look out of place in the next Avatar movie. The 347 rooms stick to a calming pearl, sage and charcoal palette and many have balconies – a rarity in Singapore . There are also a few delightful duplexes and top suites that enjoy direct access to the pool. Further along Orchard Road, Singapore an fashion retail magnate and hotelier Christina Ong has finally brought the Como brand home with the opening of Como Metropolitan Singapore (comohotels.com), a boutique-style property with wellness shot through its veins. Come here for the clean-lined rooms and suites scattered with elegant Giorgetti furniture; for sociable steak and wine dinners at Korean steakhouse Cote, which has Miami’s Michelin-star chef Simon Kim at the helm; and to take advantage of the exceptional Como Shambhala spa, which has hot and cold pools, steam rooms, saunas, yoga salons, Pilates studios and crepuscular treatment rooms rambling across nearly 850 square metres. Don’t miss one of the sublime signature massages. Three major hotel openings would be considered a boom in any city – but the boom doesn’t end here. The Mandarin Oriental Singapore ( mandarinoriental. com) just emerged from a multimillion-dollar topto-toe transformation by Design Wilkes, the team behind the exquisite Mandarin Oriental Bangkok. There are newly renovated rooms, with botanical prints and pops of rose pink, reimagined restaurants and new immersive wellness retreats. In November, Chinese lifestyle brand Artyzen (artyzen.com) cut the velvet rope on 142 contemporary Peranakan-inspired rooms (including a glorious double-height Penthouse Suite), a restaurant drawn from the food culture of the Left: Malayinspired morsels at the greenstarred Seroja restaurant; top right: outside the Como Metropolitan Singapore just off Orchard Road Malacca Strait, and a sensational rooftop swimming pool. Edition (editionhotels. com) will then debut its first hotel in South East Asia in December, featuring 204 suitably sleek Ian Schrager-styled rooms, a rooftop pool and five dining and drinking dens, including a sure-to-be-booked out restaurant from Sydney hot-shot chef Josh Niland. It’s not the only table you’ll want to book in advance. While there were no new three-star restaurants announced in the 2023 Michelin Guide, Odette, Les Amis and Zén retained their triple crowns and are worth jumping through hoops to visit. And if you want to be in with the in-crowd, try Mustard Seed ( mustardseed.sg), which was newly anointed with one star for its unique take on Singapore an-Japanese fusion cuisine, or Seroja (seroja.sg), which was awarded the first Green star in the city. And when it comes to getting there? Few First Class cabins can compare with Singapore Airlines’ A380 suites (singaporeair.com), which have been reinstated post-pandemic. Hidden behind closed doors, each suite features a single or double bed, Poltrona Frau leather armchairs and large lavatories stocked with Lalique toiletries. Menus wow with seasonal dishes conceived by multi-awardwinning Michelin chefs such as Georges Blanc and Yoshihiro Murata, while the wine list has topped Cellars in the Sky Awards’ Best Overall Cellar for the last two years. PHOTOS FROM TOP: © COMO METROPOLITAN SINGAPORE, © SEROJA 28 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
• MOTOR YACHT OF THE YEAR • DISPLACEMENT MOTOR YACHTS 1,500GT AND ABOVE BEST INTERIOR DESIGN MOTOR YACHTS 500GT AND ABOVE BEST OF THE BEST “MARINE” INTERIOR ROBB REPORT • BEST MOTOR YACHT 60M+ • BEST INTERIOR DESIGN 40M+ • BEST IYA BATHROOM
