Singapore has 17 Spanish restaurants in our directory, which puts it among the bigger Spanish dining scenes in Asia we track. They are not spread evenly. Five sit in Tanjong Pagar, three in Joo Chiat, and most of the rest cluster along the river or around the Orchard and City Hall shopping belts. This guide goes through them by neighbourhood, using what each restaurant's own listing tells us. Where a listing is thin, we say so rather than fill the gap.
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Tanjong Pagar: the densest cluster
If you only have one evening, this is the area to pick. Five of Singapore's Spanish restaurants are within a short walk of each other here.
Restaurant Gaig at 16 Stanley Street is chef Carles Gaig's Catalan restaurant in Singapore, run locally by chef Martí Carlos Martínez. Its listing points to a traditional cannelloni with a history going back to 1869. Canelones are a Catalan dish, usually leftover roast meat rolled in pasta sheets and baked under béchamel, and they are a good test of a kitchen that claims Catalan roots.
Esquina on Jiak Chuan Road is a tapas bar and restaurant whose listing describes the cooking as mainly Catalan. Kulto is at 87 Amoy Street, Pura Brasa at 5 Wallich Street, and Olivia Restaurant & Lounge at 55 Keong Saik Road. The records for those three are short and only confirm that they serve tapas and Spanish wine, so check their own menus before you go.
City Hall and the riverside
Binomio was founded in 2012 and has since moved into Raffles Arcade at 328 North Bridge Road. Its listing describes two rooms under one name: a casual tapas bar and a more formal fine dining room. The executive chef is Félix Noguera, who trained in Michelin-starred kitchens in Spain. Paella and tapas are what the restaurant leads with.
Along the Singapore River there are three more:
- My Little Spanish Place, Boat Quay at 54 Boat Quay, the second outlet of the brand, opened in April 2015.
- Tapas 24 at 60 Robertson Quay.
- Foc at 40 Hongkong Street, near Clarke Quay.
In the business district, Cendra Grill & Tapas on Gemmill Lane calls itself Mediterranean-inspired. Its focus is tapas plus grilled meats, with a wine list to match.
Joo Chiat and the east
Joo Chiat is the neighbourhood to head for if you want something closer to Spanish home cooking. Carlitos at 350 Joo Chiat Road describes itself as a casa de comidas. In Spain that name means a simple, usually family-run eating house serving stews and daily dishes rather than a tasting menu. Carlitos says it follows the same idea: seasonal ingredients, regional recipes, slow-cooked stews and rustic tapas.
Asador is at 51 Joo Chiat Place, and Next Door Spanish Café is at 699 East Coast Road. Both listings are brief. In Spain an asador is a restaurant built around roasting and grilling meat, so the name suggests the direction, but the record does not describe the menu.
Bukit Timah, Hillcrest and Orchard
My Little Spanish Place, Bukit Timah at 619 Bukit Timah Road is the original, founded in March 2010. Both branches take the mesón as their model, the kind of home-style tavern you find across Spain's regions.
Also in this part of town, Barrio at 73 Hillcrest Road is led by chef-owner José Alonso and trades as Barrio by Kulto, which links it to the Amoy Street restaurant.
On Orchard Road, Tapas Club in Orchard Central is the accessible option: a chain with three Singapore outlets covering classic tapas, paella and Spanish wine.
HarbourFront
UNA at The Alkaff Mansion is on the second floor of the Alkaff Mansion at 10 Telok Blangah Green. The listing says little about the food beyond traditional Spanish cooking and Spanish wines; the colonial-era mansion setting is what sets it apart from the others on this list.
How to choose
- For Catalan cooking, start with Restaurant Gaig or Esquina.
- For a dressed-up dinner, Binomio's fine dining room.
- For stews and home cooking, Carlitos in Joo Chiat.
- For a quick tapas stop near the river, Tapas 24, Foc or My Little Spanish Place on Boat Quay.
Several Singapore listings are still thin. If you run one of these restaurants, or you've eaten at one recently, the more detail a listing has, the easier it is for us to point diners to the right table.
