Raffles Hotel Singapore Feel Like You’Re in a Period Drama

THIS WAY OUT WORLD’S BEST HOTELS TIFFIN The Tiffin Room only got its name in the mid-1970s (from the Anglo-Indian word for a light lunch), but its tiffin curry has been served here since 1899, back when this elegant room was simply known as the dining room. The sandwiches and cakes (including the hotel’s famous mooncakes) that make up the traditional High Tea are way overpriced, but it’s hard to fault the quality as white-jacketed waiters attend to your late- afternoon needs and make you Raffles Hotel Singapore feel like you’re in a period drama. THe sAVOy of tHe eAST BY MATT POMROY t opened in 1887 and was named in the ’30s, movie star Douglas Fairbanks bet after Singapore’s English founder, Sir someone they couldn’t hurdle every table in the Stamford Raffles; 125 years later it’s still ballroom without tipping over a single wine glass. one of the finest hotels this side of the Apparently, and with the aid of monkey-gland world. Described in 1905 by a London tonic, they did manage to do it. Inewspaper as “The Savoy of the East” it has The Long Bar, now tiger-free, was also the DRINKS The Long Bar is now in a remained a bastion of aged refinement. origin of the Singapore Sling, created in 1915 by slightly different location to Raffles Singapore started as a single bungalow barman Ngiam Tong Boon. If you’re after one where it was originally built near the beach and had a panoramic sea view for today, note that the bar often has them pre-made after being moved during its first two years until land reclamation changed and waiting, so go at a quiet time and ask the renovations (it was originally the surroundings. It’s now about five-hundred barman to whip-up a fresh one for you. in the lobby where the Writers’ Bar now sits). But the spirit of metres from the sea, and over the years the Rudyard Kipling was here in 1889 but wrote, the bar lives on as the monkey- hotel itself has grown and gone through several “The food is excellent and the rooms are bad. Let nut shells cover the floor, fans refurbishments. the traveller take note. Feed at Raffles and sleep at gently waft and rounds of the The neo-Renaissance architecture marks it the Hotel de l’Europe.” Somerset Maugham lived famous Singapore Slings are out as a symbol of colonial elegance, although here in the ’20s and ’50s and wrote The Moon and downed long before the sun is over the yard arm. it was also one of the most advanced hangouts Sixpence in his suite overlooking the Palm Court. in its day — it was the first place in Singapore to Presumably he thought more of his room than have electric lights and fans. These days there are, Kipling did, describing the hotel as having stood sadly, mall-style electric escalators leading to a “for all the fables of the Exotic East.” shopping arcade, which ruins the period setting Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway and on the outer edges of the courtyard. But that aside, William Golding are also among those who it’s an oasis of authenticity in a city that keeps resided here, and in their honour the Writers’ pushing modernity, and manages to retain most of Bar has some of their photos and work to sit and the essence of what made it great. enjoy while draining a long G&T. It’s what they It is also rich in history. The last surviving would have wanted. The steakhouse on site is SUITE Somerset Maugham Suite — wild tiger in Singapore was shot by the head one of the finest —and the most expensive — in room 78 — was named after master of the Raffles Institution in the Long Bar the country. But, unlike in Kipling’s day, it’s not former resident, W. Somerset on August 13, 1902. The story goes (and it may the food you really come here for, it’s the grand Maugham. The English writer just be a story) that it wandered into the bar setting and history. was one of the highest-paid and met its end, although some accounts say In April of 2010 it was reported that the hotel in the ’30s and made famous for his accounts of Western the shooting took place under the hotel’s raised had been sold to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund for (mostly British) colonists in the Bar & Billiard Room. Either way, the notion of a $275million, thus returning it to Arabic ownership Far East at the dog-end of the wild tiger wandering in and a stoic head master — the original owner was Arab trader and British Empire. His chronicles saying something along the lines of, “It’s alright philanthropist Syed Mohamed Alsagoff. Despite of the last days of colonialism chaps, I dealt with one of these blighters in the buyout, one of several over the years, the hotel in India and Southeast Asia contain themes still relevant to Burma — hand me that rifle” engrains a spirit remains an institution that’s as much a glorious Western expats today. of the old Singapore on Raffles Hotel. Later, time machine as it is a fine place to stay. FEBRUARY 2012 ESQUIRE 111 .

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