A Culinary Journey Through the Year of the Horse
Chinese New Year 2026 | An In-Depth Gastronomic Review
As Singapore prepares to gallop into the Year of the Horse on 17 February 2026, the city-state’s finest MICHELIN establishments unveil an extraordinary tapestry of festive offerings. This comprehensive review delves deep into the culinary artistry, ambient sophistication, and textural symphonies that define Singapore’s Chinese New Year dining landscape. From One-MICHELIN-Starred sanctuaries to beloved Bib Gourmand gems, each venue presents a distinct interpretation of celebratory gastronomy, where tradition converses eloquently with innovation.
Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine (Orchard)
MICHELIN Recognition: One MICHELIN Star
Price Range: S$158++ to S$688++ per person
Ambience & Setting
Perched within the gleaming architectural embrace of ION Orchard’s third level, Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine commands attention through understated elegance. The dining room whispers of old-world Teochew refinement—carved wooden screens filter the ambient mall light into geometric patterns that dance across ivory tablecloths. Jade-green accents punctuate the space through ceramic vases cradling crimson peonies, while subtle gold filigree traces the edges of private dining alcoves. The atmosphere maintains a delicate balance: formal enough to honor the gravity of reunion dinners, yet warm enough to embrace multi-generational celebrations. During Chinese New Year, red paper lanterns cascade from the ceiling in graduated tiers, their warm crimson glow softening the contemporary lines of the space and creating an envelope of auspicious energy.
Culinary Architecture
Imperial Treasure’s three-tiered menu strategy reveals itself as a masterclass in ceremonial gastronomy. The luxurious S$688++ offering ascends to rarefied heights with its double-boiled superior shark’s fin soup—a translucent amber nectar where individual strands of shark’s fin float like gossamer threads in a rich chicken broth that has been coaxed into concentrated umami perfection over hours of patient simmering. The color palette here speaks in whispers of burnished gold and pale straw yellow, the liquid catching light with an almost ethereal luminescence.
The braised five-head South African dried greenlip abalone in oyster sauce represents textural virtuosity—each abalone slice exhibits a deep mahogany glaze, its surface lacquered to a mirror-like sheen that reflects the dining room’s golden light. The texture yields with supple resistance, neither tough nor mushy, each chew releasing waves of oceanic sweetness tempered by the savory depth of aged oyster sauce. The abalone’s natural hues—ranging from pale beige at the center to deeper chestnut at the edges—create concentric rings of color that tell the story of patient braising.
The Australian lobster baked with dried fish introduces dramatic visual theater. Vibrant coral-red lobster shells cradle snow-white meat that has been baked to succulent tenderness, while fragments of crispy dried fish—bronzed to deep amber—provide textural punctuation. The interplay between the lobster’s sweet, bouncy flesh and the fish’s savory crunch creates a flavor oscillation that keeps the palate engaged. The dish’s color composition—crimson shells against pristine white meat scattered with golden-brown fish—evokes festive prosperity.
Shisen Hanten
MICHELIN Recognition: One MICHELIN Star
Price Range: S$168++ to S$388++ per person
Ambience & Elevation
Occupying Hilton Orchard’s 35th floor, Shisen Hanten leverages Singapore’s skyline as its most dramatic design element. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the city’s glittering tapestry—towers of steel and glass pierce the tropical sky while emerald treetops of Orchard Road unfold below. The interior aesthetic channels contemporary Japanese minimalism filtered through Sichuan warmth: dark walnut furniture grounds the space while pops of lacquered red appear in chair upholstery and decorative panels. Pendant lighting fixtures descend like suspended bronze bells, their glow creating intimate pools of illumination across tables. During Chinese New Year, the restaurant introduces subtle touches—embroidered silk table runners in auspicious gold thread, delicate kumquat trees positioned at entrances, and calligraphy scrolls bearing prosperity blessings mounted on feature walls.
Signature Innovation: The Glutinous Rice Revolution
Shisen Hanten’s wok-fried glutinous rice with foie gras, Chinese sausage, and black truffle represents perhaps the most audacious reinterpretation of traditional Chinese New Year fare in Singapore’s current dining landscape. The dish arrives in a heated stone bowl, its surface glistening with residual wok heat. The glutinous rice itself achieves remarkable textural complexity—each grain maintains distinct integrity while contributing to a cohesive, slightly sticky mass that offers gentle resistance before yielding. The rice exhibits a spectrum of beige to golden-brown where the wok’s heat has caramelized the exterior, creating crispy edges that provide textural contrast.
Chunks of Canadian goose liver—seared to a pale rose-beige interior with caramelized mahogany crusts—melt into buttery silk upon contact with the tongue, their unctuous richness cutting through the rice’s starch with decadent ease. The Chinese sausage contributes jewel-toned fragments of ruby-red and amber, their sweet-savory profile providing counterpoint to the foie gras’s opulence. Yunnan black truffle shavings—dark as midnight with earthen, almost pungent aromatics—crown the composition, their presence announced first by scent, then by subtle mineral notes that linger.
The roasted sakura chicken with fragrant garlic presents a study in bronze and gold. The bird’s skin achieves that holy grail of poultry cookery—crackling crisp yet retaining a thin layer of rendered fat that provides flavor and moisture. The meat beneath reveals gradations of color from pale ivory breast to slightly darker thigh, each bite offering clean poultry flavor elevated by waves of roasted garlic sweetness that never overwhelms. The garlic cloves themselves, roasted to caramel-brown softness, become spreadable nuggets of concentrated allium perfume.
Summer Pavilion
MICHELIN Recognition: One MICHELIN Star
Price Range: From S$168++ per person
Cantonese Sanctuary
The Ritz-Carlton Millenia’s Summer Pavilion embodies Cantonese dining’s most refined expressions. The space radiates quiet luxury through its champagne-gold color scheme accented with jade-green upholstery and cherry-wood paneling. Crystal chandeliers cascade like frozen waterfalls, their multifaceted surfaces fragmenting light into prismatic sparkles across crisp white linens. Chinese lattice screens create semi-private enclaves while maintaining visual flow, and watercolor paintings of misty mountains and bamboo forests provide serene visual anchors. The restaurant’s position on the third floor grants it an intimate scale—close enough to feel the city’s energy without being consumed by it.
The Poon Choy Masterpiece
Summer Pavilion’s ten-layer poon choy represents Cantonese cuisine’s hierarchical philosophy made edible. Presented in a traditional basin, the dish reveals itself as an archaeological excavation of luxury—each layer representing different textures, flavors, and colors that must be discovered sequentially. The topmost layer features pristine Hokkaido scallops—coin-sized discs of pale ivory with coral-orange rims that offer buttery sweetness and a texture like silk custard. Sea perch flesh, steamed to translucent white opacity with barely a hint of opalescence, flakes into tender petals that dissolve on the tongue.
Deeper layers reveal darker, richer elements. Abalone slices gleam with jade-brown luster, their texture offering that characteristic snap-then-yield that signals proper preparation. Fish maw—rehydrated to spongy, gelatinous consistency—appears as pale cream-colored clouds that absorb surrounding flavors while contributing their own subtle marine sweetness and unique bouncy texture. The color progression from top to bottom moves from light to dark, pale seafood giving way to mahogany-braised meats and earthy mushrooms, the entire composition unified by a master stock that has developed profound depth through careful layering of umami.
The yusheng crowned with king scallop and salmon roe offers visual drama—shredded vegetables form a rainbow mandala of green, white, orange, and purple, topped with translucent scallop slices and glistening orange roe spheres that burst with briny pops. The ritual of tossing achieves both theatrical and textural purposes, mixing crispy elements with tender proteins into a celebration of contrasts.
Whole Earth
MICHELIN Recognition: Bib Gourmand
Plant-Based Philosophy
Tucked into Peck Seah Street’s shophouse row, Whole Earth presents a radical proposition for Chinese New Year dining: abundant celebration without animal proteins. The two-story space embraces tropical colonial charm—exposed brick walls painted in warm terracotta, rattan furniture with batik cushions, ceiling fans lazily circulating frangipani-scented air, and vintage Peranakan tiles forming geometric mosaics underfoot. Potted plants cascade from wall-mounted planters, their verdant presence reinforcing the restaurant’s earth-conscious ethos. The lighting tends warm—Edison bulbs in copper fixtures cast amber glows that make the space feel like an inviting sanctuary from Chinatown’s bustling streets.
Textural Virtuosity in Plant Kingdom
The Pearl Symphony showcases what obsessive attention to vegetable preparation can achieve. Pearl oyster mushrooms—organically grown and meticulously steamed—arrive as pristine white clusters with subtle gray undertones, their surfaces smooth as porcelain. The texture proves revelatory: each mushroom offers initial resistance before giving way to a meaty, almost seafood-like chew that releases clean, forest-floor earthiness. Fresh herbs—cilantro’s bright green, purple basil’s dark leaves, and Thai basil’s jade—provide aromatic complexity and visual contrast, their raw crispness offsetting the mushrooms’ cooked tenderness.
The Blessings Pockets deserve their auspicious name. These handmade parcels—wrapped in translucent rice paper that reveals shadowy silhouettes of their filling—achieve a pleasing textural gradient. The wrapper yields with delicate resistance, giving way to a filling where shiitake mushrooms contribute deep umami and firm texture, while water chestnuts provide unexpected bursts of crisp sweetness. The pale green loofah gravy, barely sweet with herbal undertones, coats each pocket in silky liquid that prevents dryness while contributing its own subtle vegetal notes. Coriander garnish adds fresh, citrus-like brightness that lifts the earthier flavors.
Harmony of Nature introduces makhana—fox nuts that occupy a fascinating textural space between popcorn and water chestnuts. These puffed seeds, ivory-white with subtle ridges, offer satisfying crunch that softens gradually as they absorb surrounding sauces. Lotus roots contribute their signature pattern—sliced to reveal natural holes that form flower-like designs—while providing a crisp-tender texture and subtle sweetness. The vegetarian XO sauce, bronze-brown and glistening with oil, delivers concentrated savory punch typically associated with dried seafood, here achieved through alchemy of mushrooms, preserved vegetables, and aromatics.
Keng Eng Kee (Bukit Merah)
MICHELIN Recognition: Selected
Heartland Authenticity
Keng Eng Kee represents Singapore’s tze char tradition at its most authentic—a ground-floor HDB coffeeshop locale where fluorescent lighting illuminates marble-topped tables and plastic stools, where the soundtrack mixes wok flames roaring and Hokkien conversations punctuated by laughter. The ambience makes no pretense toward refinement; instead, it embraces convivial chaos as essential to the experience. Lazy Susans spin bearing communal dishes, while cold Tiger beer bottles sweat condensation onto napkin holders. During Chinese New Year, red banners with gold characters proclaiming prosperity blessings hang from ceiling pipes, and the kitchen operates at fever pitch, producing dishes that prioritize bold flavors and generous portions over delicate plating.
Abundance and Soul
The Fortune Pot epitomizes excess in the best possible way. This communal vessel overflows with treasures: ten-head abalone—smaller than their luxury counterparts but braised to tender mahogany perfection—nestle against golf-ball-sized scallops that have absorbed master stock’s savory depths. Fish maw pieces, rehydrated to spongy translucency, create textural variety, while sea cucumber offers its distinctive gelatinous snap. The entire composition swims in a dark, glossy gravy enriched with dried scallop essence, its color a deep brown-black that catches light like liquid onyx.
The coffee-glazed pork ribs—KEK’s signature—deserve their cult following. Each rib emerges from the kitchen lacquered in a glaze so dark it approaches black, yet tastes neither burnt nor bitter. The coating achieves remarkable textural transformation: crispy-sticky exterior that crackles under teeth, giving way to tender meat that pulls from bone with minimal resistance. The flavor profile balances sweet caramel notes from the coffee-sugar glaze against the pork’s inherent savory richness, with subtle coffee bitterness preventing the dish from veering into cloying territory. The ribs’ surface catches light with mirror-like sheen, their appearance almost lacquered.
Osteria Mozza
MICHELIN Recognition: Selected
Cultural Crossroads
Osteria Mozza’s Chinese New Year offerings represent fusion at its most successful—not confused mashup but thoughtful cultural dialogue. The Hilton Orchard’s fifth-floor location provides an open, loft-like space where exposed ductwork painted matte black contrasts with warm walnut tables and brass fixtures. The mozzarella bar—the restaurant’s centerpiece—displays various cheese varieties in glass cases, their creamy whites providing visual contrast to the surrounding earth tones. During Chinese New Year, the restaurant maintains its Italian soul while acknowledging the festival through carefully chosen red accent elements and seasonally appropriate ingredients.
East-West Alchemy
The mezzaluna stuffed with minced pork and shrimp demonstrates pasta’s remarkable versatility as a canvas for Chinese flavors. Each half-moon parcel—its pale yellow pasta dough rolled thin enough to reveal shadows of filling—achieves al dente texture that yields to creamy filling combining pork’s savory richness and shrimp’s sweet oceanic notes. The ginger-soy cream sauce, pale tan with darker brown swirls of soy, coats each piece in silky liquid that bridges Italian technique and Chinese flavor vocabulary. Crispy shallots scattered across the top—golden-brown and fragrant—provide textural contrast and aromatic punch that ties the dish firmly to Asian preparations.
The Peking duck pizza achieves the improbable: respecting both traditions while creating something genuinely new. The wood-fired crust—blistered with dark spots where dough meets 800-degree heat—provides sturdy base with crispy exterior and chewy interior. Sliced roast duck, mahogany-glazed with crispy skin still attached, adorns the pizza alongside swipes of dark hoisin sauce and hair-thin scallion shreds. The combination works because each element maintains its integrity: the crust tastes unmistakably like pizza, the duck unmistakably like Peking duck, yet together they create harmony rather than discord.
The red bean tiramisu represents dessert innovation at its most charming. Layers of espresso-soaked ladyfingers alternate with sweet red bean paste—its color a rich burgundy-brown—creating visual striations that mirror traditional tiramisu while tasting entirely different. The red beans contribute earthy sweetness and slightly grainy texture that provides counterpoint to mascarpone’s silky richness. The result reads as neither fully Italian nor Chinese but as something new that honors both traditions.
Shang Palace & Yì By Jereme Leung
Imperial Grandeur
Both Shang Palace (Shangri-La Hotel) and Yì By Jereme Leung (Raffles Hotel) occupy rarefied territory where hotel grandeur meets culinary excellence. Shang Palace’s lobby-level position within Shangri-La creates an immediately impressive entrance—high ceilings, ornate screens, and service staff moving with choreographed precision. The dining room embraces traditional Chinese luxury: round tables facilitate communal dining, lazy Susans allow equitable sharing, and private rooms offer intimacy for important family gatherings. Red and gold dominate the color scheme, with jade accents providing cool counterpoints.
Yì By Jereme Leung occupies Raffles Arcade’s third floor, bringing contemporary Chinese sophistication to Singapore’s most iconic hotel. The space feels more modern than Shang Palace—cleaner lines, more subdued colors, lighting that tends dramatic rather than warm. Yet both restaurants share commitment to celebratory abundance, offering set menus that range from approachable to opulent, each course representing careful attention to ingredient quality, traditional technique, and contemporary presentation sensibility.
The Auspicious Golden Horse Yusheng at Shang Palace deserves special mention for artistic ambition. Vegetables are julienned with surgical precision and arranged to form the year’s zodiac animal—the horse appears in profile, its body composed of orange carrot, white radish, and green cucumber strips, all held together through structural ingenuity. The presentation transforms yusheng from simple prosperity salad into edible sculpture, though the ritual tossing returns it to delicious chaos.
Concluding Reflections
Singapore’s 2026 Chinese New Year dining landscape reveals a city in full command of its culinary identity—confident enough to honor tradition while embracing innovation, sophisticated enough to execute both refined techniques and soulful home-cooking, and diverse enough to accommodate plant-based purists and luxury-seeking epicures within the same festival celebration.
From a textural perspective, these establishments collectively demonstrate mastery across the entire spectrum: the snap of properly braised abalone, the silk of steamed fish, the crunch of crispy shallots, the tender chew of handmade dumplings, the bouncy gelatinousness of fish maw, and the crackling crust of roasted meats. Each texture serves specific purposes—some provide comfort, others create excitement, but all contribute to the multi-dimensional eating experiences that define memorable festive dining.
The color palettes employed reveal sophisticated understanding of visual appetite stimulation. Auspicious reds appear deliberately—in lobster shells, glazed meats, and garnish elements—while gold manifests through sauces, caramelized surfaces, and carefully chosen serving vessels. White represents purity in pristine seafood and steamed preparations, while browns and mahogany hues signal depth of flavor achieved through patient braising and reduction. Even the verdant greens of vegetable components serve purposes beyond nutrition, providing visual relief and freshness that prevents visual palate fatigue.
What emerges from this comprehensive review is appreciation for Singapore’s dining ecosystem—one that supports traditional Teochew refinement alongside fusion experimentation, that celebrates both MICHELIN-starred precision and hawker-stall soul, and that recognizes Chinese New Year as opportunity not merely for eating but for communal joy, cultural continuity, and gastronomic adventure. As the Year of the Horse gallops forward, these establishments stand ready to transform reunion dinners into memorable feasts where every dish tells a story, every texture contributes meaning, and every color carries symbolism forward into prosperity.
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