Three of Singapore’s six new Michelin stars went to Chinese restaurants this August. Two sit inside the city’s largest luxury hotels.
Cherry Garden by Chef Fei at Mandarin Oriental, Singapore and Jin Ting Wan at Marina Bay Sands both entered the MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2026 with one star. Yong Fu, the Ningbo house at Suntec City, moved up from the Selected list. Together they make a useful map: Cantonese and Teochew cooking in a renovated hotel, Cantonese cooking high above a resort, and Ningbo seafood in a mall. Chinese fine dining is becoming a reason to enter these buildings, not merely the meal attached to a wedding or corporate booking.
For the full scoreboard, read What a Decade of Michelin Singapore Actually Measures. The hotel story starts with what changed before inspectors arrived.
“My aim is to bring authentic Chinese cuisine, especially Cantonese flavours, to local diners through high-quality service.”
Huang Jinghui (Chef Fei), after Cherry Garden’s first Singapore star, August 2026
The Chinese room earns the renovation
The hotel Chinese room has always earned its floor area. Private rooms take wedding tables and corporate lunches; Sunday yum cha keeps local families returning after checkout. Yet hotel marketing often gave the glamour to a French dining room, Japanese counter, or lobby bar. The Chinese restaurant carried the social calendar without always becoming the house’s international calling card.
The investment now matches the social importance. Mandarin Oriental closed the entire property for a renovation reported at roughly S$135 million in 2023, then relaunched Cherry Garden under Chef Fei on 2 July 2025. Marina Bay Sands opened Jin Ting Wan three weeks later as its own developed-and-operated Cantonese restaurant on Level 55 of Hotel Tower 1. Elsewhere, Summer Pavilion at the Ritz-Carlton, Millenia kept its star for a tenth consecutive guide year, while Conrad’s Summer Palace and Hilton’s Shisen Hanten remain on the one-star list. Michelin did not invent this category; the 2026 awards caught up with the money and attention already moving into it.
Cherry Garden moves into the courtyard
Chef Fei, Chaoshan-born Huang Jinghui, already held two Michelin stars at Jiang by Chef Fei in Guangzhou. In Singapore he works as supervising chef with chef de cuisine Steven Luo running the pass. The menu leans Cantonese and Teochew: dim sum that Time Out still ranks among the city’s best, seafood with seasonal pricing, and signatures such as boneless crucian carp congee. Published set menus recently sat near S$138 to S$218 for lunch and S$198 to S$268 for dinner before service; confirm on the hotel site.
Four private dining rooms take gatherings from about four to eighteen, with the largest opening to an outdoor patio. Wooden trellises, stone walls, and garden light borrow courtyard-house grammar without turning dinner into a pavilion theme. Mandarin Oriental’s wedding pages now build Cherry Garden menus into the Garden Suite offer. Couples and corporate hosts can choose the restaurant’s cooking at the start of the brief instead of accepting a generic Chinese banquet menu at the end.
Jill Goh, the hotel’s general manager, called the star a milestone for the property as well as the kitchen. Mandarin Oriental counted it as the group’s thirtieth Michelin star worldwide. More tellingly, Chinese cuisine supplied the renovated Marina Bay hotel with the first Singapore star it could claim as its own.
Chinese wine on level 55
Jin Ting Wan sits fifty-five floors up with Song Dynasty-inspired interiors by AvroKO: deep blues, gilt, dragonfly motifs that nod to the name. Executive chef Albert Li, Guangxi-born with Michelin and Black Pearl experience in China, runs a seasonal Cantonese brief that pulls Shunde, Teochew, and Hakka threads when useful. Signatures that critics keep naming include roasted pipa duck and precise dim sum. The room seats about 162, with private rooms for ten, suites for twelve and fourteen with dedicated service stations, and an eight-seat chef’s table.
The view gets diners upstairs; the beverage programme gives them something to discuss once seated. Head sommelier Joe Yang took the 2026 Michelin Guide Sommelier Award, the first awarded to a Chinese restaurant in Singapore. Local coverage puts his Chinese-wine list above a hundred labels, with Ningxia, Shandong, Yunnan, and Xinjiang represented. Head tea master Jacky Zhao Gang runs a dedicated tea lounge. Bordeaux remains on the premises, but it no longer has to explain Chinese luxury by itself.
Yong Fu books without a canopy
Across Temasek Boulevard, Yong Fu makes the argument without a hotel. The first overseas branch of the Shanghai Ningbo brand opened at Suntec City in 2024 and earned its star on Zhejiang seafood, Ningbo eighteen cuts, and sticky rice balls made to order. It carries plenty of private rooms, but the dining room also introduces Singaporeans to a regional cuisine many mainland Chinese guests already know. The reservation can begin with yellow croaker rather than an occasion.
The hotels want that local appetite. Chef Fei addressed Singapore diners after the award; Jin Ting Wan’s tasting formats and wine list court guests who might otherwise choose an independent counter. Weddings, corporate entertainment, and birthday tables of ten still make the private-room arithmetic work. The public room now has to earn a separate visit.
Keep The Banquet Guide to Singapore for the wider city map. Book Cherry Garden and Jin Ting Wan through their hotel channels, and confirm dress codes, private-room minimums, and current set prices before a celebration week; Yong Fu takes its own reservations at Suntec. Then notice which room the concierge names first. Increasingly, it is the Chinese one.
