Eat, Drink and Dance, Singapore-Style

The Lion City’s nightlife is coming to Australia’s east coast with a series of events being held in Sydney and Melbourne celebrating Singapore’s reputation as the ‘Cocktail Capital of Asia’

Sydney-siders and Melbournians will get a true taste of Singaporean hospitality and nightlife next week with Singapore Social kicking off in the Harbour City.

A series of events will take place from 20th – 21st February at The Rooftop Sydney, and then from 23rd – 24th February at The Albion Rooftop in South Melbourne, bringing together an impressive line-up of food, cocktails and live entertainment that celebrate Singapore’s world-class reputation as a 24-hour city.

The Lion City is rapidly cementing its reputation as the ‘Cocktail Capital of Asia’ with five bars from Singapore ranked in the World’s 50 Best Bars List. Two of these will make appearances at the events in Sydney and Melbourne, including Native (#13 in the world) and Operation Dagger (#23 in the world).

Native is known for its inventive cocktail menu featuring regionally-sourced ingredients, along with a rotation of some out-of-the-ordinary additions, such as crunchy freeze-dried ants and fermented grasshoppers.

For Singapore Social’s events, owner and head mixologist Vijay Mudaliar has designed two celebratory cocktails including Forager’s Garden, a drink inspired by Singapore’s garden city setting, that uses Brass Lion gin, blue pea flowers, Pandan kombucha and wild torch ginger. Sarong Punch, meanwhile, showcases ingredients like coconut arrack, candlenuts, toasted red beans, turmeric and milk punch. The cocktail is inspired by classic Peranakan flavours and a nostalgic Singapore dessert, Potong ice-cream.

Atmospheric, mad-scientist-style bar Operation Dagger in Singapore’s Chinatown pours its guests boundary-pushing cocktails and for Singapore Social you’ll have the chance to sip on concoctions created by founder and Melbourne-born Luke Whearty. The Soapberry Sling stars some of the native fruits of Southeast Asia like lychees and longan nectar, the ‘Sling’ paying homage to the Raffles’ famous Singapore Sling.

The outlandish Pork Soda cocktail uses distilled 7X, roast pork belly, apple, creamed soda and animal glass and was inspired by eating dim sum at Swee Choon restaurant with the Operation Dagger team after service. “It was specifically inspired by the flavour combination of coca-cola and Chinese 5 spice pork ribs,” said Whearty.

Direct from his MasterChef Australia 2018 win, Sashi Cheliah the ‘king of flavour’ will also be participating in Singapore Social, creating a degustation matched with the Singapore-inspired cocktails and à la carte menus for Sydney, and an all-day menu of à la carte small plates for Melbourne. The menus will draw from his Singaporean heritage, with highlights including chilli crab sliders, crispy-skin pork with sweet & sour sauce and chargrilled spring onion, and chicken rendang wrapped on roti jala with pineapple cucumber achar – the same dish that was featured on MasterChef Australia 2018.

Entertainment at Singapore Social will be provided by turntablist, DJ and hip-hop pioneer DJ KoFlow, while pop-sensation and R&B singer Tabitha Nauser will perform tracks from her upcoming EP, which will be released later this year.