Raffles Hotel Keeps Singapore's Colonial-Era Grandeur as an All-Suite Address

Raffles Hotel has stood on Beach Road in Singapore since 1887, opened by the Armenian Sarkies brothers as a modest bungalow hotel that grew, over subsequent decades, into the sprawling colonial-era landmark it is today. Singapore was still a British colonial port then, and the hotel's tropical courtyards, wide verandas and colonnaded facade were built for a clientele of merchants, planters and colonial administrators passing through one of the region's busiest harbours.

An all-suite hotel since its restoration

The hotel closed in December 2017 for a three-year restoration and reopened in August 2019 as an entirely suite-format property, with no standard rooms left on the floor plan. The renovation, carried out with input from conservation architects, kept the original black-and-white colonial shell and courtyard layout intact while rebuilding the interiors behind it.

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The Long Bar and its cocktail

The hotel's Long Bar is widely credited as the birthplace of the Singapore Sling, a gin-based cocktail said to have been created around 1915 by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon. The bar has kept its tradition of serving peanuts with the shells discarded straight onto the floor, one of the few places in Singapore where that kind of mess is part of the design.

A literary guest list

Raffles Hotel's guestbook has included writers Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham, whose stays through the early twentieth century helped cement its reputation as a fixture of the region's colonial literary circuit. That history is now formally protected: the building was gazetted as a national monument in 1987.

A courtyard at the centre of a modern city

Singapore has grown into a dense, contemporary financial hub around the hotel, but the property's low-rise courtyard layout, arcade of shops and tropical gardens still function as a deliberate contrast to the glass towers nearby, a pocket of the city built at an entirely different scale and pace.

Traveller tips

• The hotel is an all-suite property; expect rates well above Singapore's standard hotel average, reflecting its heritage-listed status and suite-only format.
• The Long Bar and its ground-floor arcade are open to non-guests, so it's possible to visit for a Singapore Sling without booking a room.
• Raffles Hotel sits a short walk from Marina Bay and the Civic District, making it easy to combine with a broader day of sightseeing.
• Formal dress codes apply in some of the hotel's restaurants and bars; check current requirements before visiting for dinner.