Singapore is the banquet city where a three-star lunch and a hawker tray can share one EasyCard week without apology.
Odette sits inside the National Gallery Singapore at 1 St Andrew’s Road. Candlenut works Peranakan memory at 17A Dempsey Road. Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle still holds a Michelin star for bak chor mee at 466 Crawford Lane. The useful question for diaspora hosts is how to book both registers without flattening either into Instagram proof.
The current map to trust is the MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2025, announced 24 July 2025 at Marina Bay Sands: three restaurants at three stars, seven at two, thirty-two at one, plus 89 Bib Gourmand and 157 Selected addresses across more than 40 cuisines. The 2026 ceremony is scheduled for 4 August 2026 at Raffles Sentosa for the guide’s tenth Singapore edition. Until then, plan against 2025 and reconfirm after the August release.
“The ninth edition of the MICHELIN Guide Singapore showcases an extraordinary blend of innovation, cultural diversity, and enduring dedication… Despite market challenges, Singapore remains a vital culinary destination in Southeast Asia.”
Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of the MICHELIN Guide, at the 2025 Singapore selection
The three-star summit
Singapore’s three-star tier is compact and stubborn: Les Amis, Odette, and Zén. All three retained their stars in 2025.
Odette
Chef-owner Julien Royer cooks modern French at #01-04 in the Gallery’s Supreme Court Wing, named for his grandmother. Lunch runs Tuesday to Saturday with last seatings around noon to 1:00 p.m.; dinner Monday to Saturday with last seatings about 6:30 to 8:15 p.m.; closed Sundays. Published menus recently listed lunch from about SGD 328++ and dinner Épicure about SGD 498++; confirm on odetterestaurant.com before you transfer a deposit. Enter via Coleman Street or Parliament Place, allow Gallery wayfinding time, and dress for a civic museum rather than a hotel lobby.
For stay and neighbourhood logic around the Gallery, read The Banquet Guide to Singapore.
Les Amis
Les Amis at Shaw Centre, #01-16, 1 Scotts Road, opened in 1994 as an independent fine-dining flagship and remains the Orchard-side three-star under culinary director Sébastien Lepinoy. The kitchen flies in French produce with the confidence of a house that treats classic haute cuisine as a living standard rather than a nostalgia act. Book through lesamis.com.sg; groups of six or more go through the reservation concierge at +65 6733 2225.
Zén
Zén occupies a three-storey shophouse at 41 Bukit Pasoh Road, the Singapore outpost of Björn Frantzén, opened November 2018 with Unlisted Collection and lifted to three stars in 2021. Nordic technique meets Japanese produce across floors: aperitif below, tasting menu above. Reservations for the following month typically open on the 1st at 10:00 a.m. Singapore time on restaurantzen.com. Third-party figures recently put lunch near SGD 395++ and dinner near SGD 580++; confirm on the site when the calendar unlocks.
Heritage kitchens that earned stars
The three-star rooms are mostly French and Nordic-Japanese. The banquet argument for Singapore as a diaspora destination lives equally in kitchens that treat local and regional heritage as fine-dining material.
Candlenut
Malcolm Lee’s Candlenut at 17A Dempsey Road (COMO Dempsey) became the world’s first Michelin-starred Peranakan restaurant in the inaugural 2016 Singapore guide and has held one star through 2025. Communal à la carte and a rotating tasting menu translate Straits-Chinese spice pastes, buah keluak, and family technique into a restaurant idiom without turning Nyonya cooking into costume. Book through COMO Dempsey / Candlenut channels; Dempsey is a taxi or Grab hop rather than an MRT exit.
“The Peranakan kitchen is my heritage.”
Malcolm Lee, chef-owner of Candlenut
Labyrinth
LG Han’s Labyrinth at Esplanade Mall #02-23, 8 Raffles Avenue, holds one star for New Singaporean tasting menus built from childhood memory and seafood. Recent Chope listings put lunch about SGD 208++ and dinner about SGD 298++, with dinner running roughly three hours. The kitchen is explicit about dietary limits (seafood-centric; many common exclusions cannot be accommodated). Reserve on restaurantlabyrinth.com and treat the Esplanade as your drop-off, not a guess at Marina Bay.
Seroja
Kevin Wong’s Seroja at Duo Galleria, 7 Fraser Street #01-30/31/32/33, opened 2022 and quickly took a Michelin star, Singapore’s first Green Star, and the Young Chef Award in 2023, retaining star and Green Star through 2025. The Nusantara tasting menu works Malay Archipelago herbs, spices, and ethically sourced seafood; dinner figures in recent coverage sit from about SGD 218++ upward depending on menu version. Bugis MRT is the practical approach. For diaspora tables that want Malay and archipelago flavours at banquet pacing, this is the current starred address to protect.
Hawker culture as the other banquet
On 16 December 2020, UNESCO inscribed hawker culture in Singapore on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity: community dining rooms where Chinese, Malay, Indian, and other kitchens share the same tray and table. That inscription is not a tourist slogan. It is the reason a tasting-menu week that skips hawkers feels incomplete.
Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle at 466 Crawford Lane #01-12 has held one Michelin star since 2016, the year Singapore’s first guide also starred Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle (Hawker Chan). Chan’s stall later lost its star (2021) and remains on the Bib Gourmand map; Tai Hwa is the hawker star that stuck. Queues are real. Go early, order bak chor mee, and do not treat the star as a substitute for tasting other Bib stalls the guide lists across the island.
Leave one lunch or late supper for a hawker centre you choose for proximity rather than fame: Maxwell after Chinatown walking, a neighbourhood centre near your hotel, whatever keeps the week honest. The point is the register change: plastic tray, cash or card depending on stall, no sommelier, equal seriousness about the bowl.
How to book a Singapore banquet week
Protect the three-star calendar first. Odette and Les Amis fill on their own sites; Zén’s monthly release is a diary alarm. Do not assume hotel concierges can magic a table the week you land.
Add one heritage tasting menu. Candlenut, Labyrinth, or Seroja, depending on whether you want Peranakan, New Singaporean, or Malay Archipelago. Two heritage nights in a four-night stay usually beats stacking three French rooms.
Keep one hawker appointment sacred. Morning or late supper. UNESCO culture, not a compromise meal.
Watch the two-star tier if you have a fifth night. The 2025 two-star list includes Cloudstreet, Jaan by Kirk Westaway, Meta, Saint Pierre, Shoukouwa, Sushi Sakuta (promoted), and Thevar. Useful depth; not required for a first serious week.
Mind GST and service. Fine-dining ++ pricing sits on top of 9 percent GST and typical 10 percent service. Build the bill into the plan so the table does not become the fight.
Hotel bars for the conversation after. When the reunion turns to inheritance or return-to-Asia logistics, a neutral lobby bar still works better than anyone’s dining room. Read The Hotel Bar as Embassy for that register.
Singapore’s banquet offer is competence across temperatures: air-conditioned ceremony and open-air community trays in the same city-state. Book the summit. Keep the hawker. That is the week worth flying for.
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See The Banquet Guide to Singapore, The Hotel Bar as Embassy, and The Asian Grand Tour.
