Review: Raffles Singapore

How did it strike you on arrival?
It may well be that no hotel is more closely associated with its city than Raffles Singapore. It has gone through various mutations in the 130 or so years since it opened, as a modest 10-room bungalow, in 1887. By the early 20th century it had pretty much assumed the physical form that it retains today and attained something like mythical status.

What’s the story? 
Long and complicated. The sort of story that people write books about. (As a matter of fact, the great Pico Iyer has just written a brilliant book about it, a copy of which you may, I suspect, find on your bedside table on your next visit to Raffles, as well as in the Writers Bar and the Hamleys-like Raffles Boutique.) Long story short, though, the old bird needed a bit of zhuzhing-up. The zhuzhing-up took closer to three years than two to complete, and repeated delays along the way had some observers and Raffles loyalists—including me—more than a little twitchy. Would it all be OK in the end? Had something gone terribly, terribly wrong? It would, and it had not. The good bits have all been preserved. The less good bits, or in any case those that simply had to change, have been given the treatment. Most of that treatment has come courtesy of Alexandra Champalimaud, who previously waved her hard-to-define, contemporary-classic wand over the Plaza in New York and the Dorchester in London, among many other hotels. I cannot help thinking that this is the best of the lot.

The good stuff: Tell us about your room.
An extremely pleasant surprise. (And by the way, it is not a "room." Suites only, almost all of them arranged according to a typically tropical "tripartite" design, whereby you pass from veranda to parlor to bedroom and bathroom.) Out with most of the Victoriana, in with the hard-to-define, contemporary-classic style mentioned above—though with enough echoes of what went before that you will not feel freaked out. The brass bell buttons turned light switches? Still there. The ceiling fans, wicker chairs, ceramic lamps? Present and correct, just in smaller quantities than previously, and now obliged to make polite conversation with Alexandra Champalimaud’s additions.

How about the food and drink? 
How about it? The most radical changes all concern food and drink in one way or another. Anne-Sophie Pic’s exquisite La Dame de Pic has elicited gasps of delight; my claim to first-in status rests on having been the first member of the press to be dazzled by Jereme Leung’s Yi (whose otherworldly little entrance area is destined to be more photographed than the vast concrete banana atop Marina Bay Sands); and Alain Ducasse’s BBR is the newest opening. Meanwhile, the Long Bar continues to dispense Singapore Slings like they are going out of style, though I doubt they ever will. The Raffles Courtyard has been transformed from a place where, as the hotel’s unflappable general manager, Christian Westbeld, put it to me, "you might have been afraid to run into your grandparents," into a flexible, relaxed outdoor space where you can sip Champagne or chug beer by the bucket, as you prefer. And best of all, in my opinion, the old Writers Bar, which was barely a bar at all and hardly worth writing about, has been shifted to the front of the main building, greatly expanded and transformed into one of the most charming bars in a city that is full of charming bars.

What sort of person stays here?
Very spoiled, very happy people. People who like luscious heritage hotels packed to the rafters with stories. People who could not care less about heritage or stories but who like lusciousness. And all kinds of people in between. One of Singapore’s most attractive qualities is its cosmopolitanism, its openness to the world; Raffles embodies that spirit.

Anything stand out about other services and features?
Not a bad word. The sunniness outside is eclipsed by that inside the hotel. Every guest has a butler. Mine was called Gin. I like to think that Gin will be Secretary General of the United Nations in the fullness of time. Minister of Labor and Employment in the Singaporean government at the very least. One morning she brought tea to my room and heard me addressing threatening remarks at my laptop through gritted teeth. A certain amount of deadline-related bad language might, I am afraid, have been involved. "Sorry, Gin," I said, realizing what a fool I was making of myself. That afternoon, deadline met, Gin found me by the hotel’s swimming pool in a much-improved frame of mind. "Mr. King!" she said. "I am pleased to see you here! A good work-life balance is so important!"

What’s the neighborhood scene like? 
There is an old saying that goes something like: "You don’t come to Singapore and stay at Raffles; you come to Raffles and see what you can of Singapore." All great hotels are universes unto themselves, and this one more than most. That is not, of course, a reason not to leave your room and go forth and explore the outside world. But it is a reason not to feel too rotten if, on your way toward the front door, you never make it past the Writers Bar.

Anything else?
A note on the Long Bar. I love it. Some people do not. Make up your own mind. But what I would urge you to do is to follow the compulsory Sling (after making a few complimentary remarks to the bartender about how pleasantly different it is from the last time you were here—less sweet, less syrupy than before) with a Million Dollar Cocktail. Bizarrely, this is not even on the menu. But it was invented by the same guy who invented the Sling, Ngiam Tong Boon, in the same year, 1915. Funny, isn’t it, how people latch onto one thing and not another? The Singapore Sling and the Million Dollar Cocktail are sisters who share the same DNA and many of the same qualities but possess quite different temperaments and have gone on to enjoy different lives. One is beautiful and famous the world over; the other is even more beautiful yet content not to have to put up with all the fuss and attention.

And anything you’d change? 
Some of the contemporary artworks on the upper stories of the main building. Just four or five of them—inexplicably jarring. I have nothing against contemporary art. Love the stuff. But if those absurdities are still there on my next visit, I will remove them myself, hurl them into the Singapore River, and live with the consequences.

Bottom line: worth it?
This question is a vexed one. Worth what to whom? According to which criteria? Given the overall cost of the renovation and the number of rooms—I mean suites—it comes out, I believe, at something like $1.9 million per room. I have been coming here since I was eight years old and, based on what I have seen with my own eyes, I can say, hand on heart, that the joint has not looked better in my lifetime. Having studied piles of old photographs in the company of the hotel’s resident historian, Leslie Danker, I would venture to say that it has probably never, ever looked better in any lifetime. Ever. So. Is it worth it? Damn right it is.