As the Year of the Horse gallops into view, Singapore’s dining landscape transforms into a tapestry of crimson lanterns, auspicious flavors, and tables groaning under the weight of reunion feasts. This year’s offerings span the spectrum from thunderous hotel banquets to hushed, intimate kitchens where every dish tells a story written in fire, time, and careful hands.
Cassia, Capella Singapore: Rainforest Elegance Meets Cantonese Precision
Ambience
Tucked within Sentosa’s verdant embrace, Cassia exists in a realm where the city’s pulse fades to a whisper. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame an ancient rainforest that seems to breathe with the room, while the interior unfolds in tones of warm amber, jade green, and the deep lacquered red of traditional Chinese furniture. Crystal chandeliers cast a gentle glow across tables dressed in crisp white linen, each setting adorned with hand-painted porcelain that catches the light like precious stones. The space feels neither ostentatious nor austere—it simply holds you, allowing conversation to flow without the weight of formality pressing down on shoulders already heavy with the year’s accumulated fatigue.
The Abundant Blessings Menu: A Study in Layered Luxury
The meal opens with the Prosperity Yu Sheng, presented not as spectacle but as ceremony. The platter arrives in concentric circles of color: julienned carrots in sunset orange, daikon ribbons bleached to moonlight white, pickled ginger blushing pink, and threads of jellyfish that glisten like wet silk. Crystallized bites of candied melon and lime catch the light, while pomelo segments burst with citrus brightness. The centerpiece—thick slices of Norwegian salmon, their coral flesh marbled with cream—rests atop this kaleidoscope like a crown. As chopsticks lift and toss, the crunch of crackers mingles with the soft give of fish, sweet plum sauce coating each strand in sticky benediction. It’s organized chaos, a moment of controlled disorder that somehow sets the tone for abundance.
The bird’s nest soup arrives in individual bowls, each one cradling a treasure. The broth itself is crystalline, nearly transparent, yet dense with the essence of long-simmered chicken and the mineral sweetness of dried scallops. Suspended within like clouds in amber sky, the bird’s nest strands maintain their delicate structure, offering a texture that defies easy description—simultaneously gelatinous and crisp, dissolving and present. A quail egg, its yolk sunset-orange and impossibly rich, breaks at the gentlest prod, bleeding golden luxury into the pale broth. This is not soup meant to fill the belly but to prepare the palate, to signal that what follows will demand attention.
The black truffle lobster enters on a platter that commands the table. The crustacean has been split lengthwise, its flesh extracted, wok-fried with a whisper of Shaoxing wine, then returned to its armor. The meat gleams under a glossy coating of truffle-infused butter, each morsel offering the sweet brine of the ocean floor cut through by earth’s most prized fungus. The texture plays between tender and toothsome—the flesh gives easily yet maintains structure, never descending into mushiness. Shavings of fresh black truffle crown the dish, their aroma heady and almost overwhelming, transforming simple crustacean into something that feels ancient and new simultaneously.
But it’s the A5 wagyu that stops conversation mid-sentence. Sourced from Japanese cattle bred for marbling so intricate it resembles frost patterns on winter glass, the beef arrives barely seared, its interior a gradient from caramelized crust to rose-pink center. The fat doesn’t so much melt as evaporate on the tongue, leaving behind the clean, almost sweet flavor of premium beef and the ghost of charcoal smoke. Each slice has been cut against the grain, ensuring tenderness that requires no chewing, only presence. Paired with pickled vegetables that offer acid and crunch—a necessary counterpoint to such opulence—the dish becomes a meditation on luxury tempered by restraint.
The meal concludes with nian gao reimagined: pan-fried until a golden crust forms, concealing an interior that stretches like warm taffy, sweet with the caramel notes of dark sugar and glutinous rice flour. It arrives with slices of taro, purple-grey and earthy, their natural starchiness providing ballast against the dessert’s sweetness.
Summer Pavilion, The Ritz-Carlton: Michelin-Starred Ceremony Above the Bay
Ambience
Summer Pavilion occupies the third floor of The Ritz-Carlton like a jewel box suspended above Marina Bay. The dining room unfolds in tones of cream and champagne gold, punctuated by oxblood accents that recall imperial dining halls without mimicking them. Hand-painted tableware—each piece a small artwork featuring cranes, lotus flowers, or abstract brushstrokes—transforms every course into a composed still life. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, the city’s financial district rises in steel and glass, while the bay itself stretches towards the horizon, its waters catching fragments of afternoon sun or the neon bleed of evening. The room maintains a hush, not enforced but natural, as if the space itself understands the significance of reunion meals.
The Eight-Course Journey: Precision as Poetry
Chef Cheung Siu Kong’s approach to Lunar New Year dining reveals itself in degrees, each course building on the last like chapters in a carefully plotted novel. The king scallop yu sheng announces itself through restraint—no towering platter here, but rather a composed arrangement where each element maintains its identity. The scallops, seared briefly to develop a golden crust while keeping their interiors translucent and sweet, rest atop the traditional salad components. Salmon roe provides bursts of brine, tiny orange spheres that pop against the teeth, while the vegetables maintain their crunch through careful blanching. The plum sauce here tastes less sweet, more nuanced, allowing the seafood’s natural flavors to speak.
The double-boiled bird’s nest soup arrives as liquid gold enriched to near-impossible depths. Hours of patient simmering have transformed chicken, ham, and aromatics into a broth that coats the spoon, leaving a viscous trail that speaks of extracted collagen and concentrated essence. But it’s the additions that transform this from excellent to extraordinary: crab roe, its coral brightness offering a saline richness, and black caviar, each pearl a tiny explosion of ocean brine and butter. The bird’s nest strands maintain their integrity despite the long cooking, offering textural interest that keeps the palate engaged. This is soup as statement, proof that luxury can be measured in hours as much as ingredients.
The Dong Xing grouper arrives whole, steamed with such precision that the flesh releases cleanly from the bone with barely a nudge from chopsticks. The fish has been seasoned with preserved vegetables—mustard greens aged until their bitterness mellows into complex umami—and finished with hot oil poured over scallions and ginger just before service. The resulting dish offers layers: the clean, sweet flesh of the grouper; the funky depth of fermented greens; the aromatic punch of alliums caught at the moment of their transformation from raw to cooked. Each bite tastes simultaneously delicate and robust, a balance that takes years to perfect.
The Pen Cai—literally “basin feast”—commands the center of the table like a monument to abundance. Constructed in layers within a traditional claypot, it reveals its treasures gradually. At the top, dried oysters gleam like burnished copper, their flavor concentrated through sun and time into something almost sweet. Beneath them, braised abalone—their flesh tender from hours in master stock—nestle against sea cucumber whose texture oscillates between firm and yielding. Fish maw, treasured for its collagen content and ability to absorb surrounding flavors, adds a gelatinous richness. The Hokkaido scallops, sweet and dense, provide contrast to the softer textures above and below. At the very bottom, where all the cooking liquids have pooled, daikon radish and napa cabbage have absorbed every nuance of flavor, becoming vehicles for the entire dish’s essence. The gravy itself—dark, glossy, tasting of soy, oyster sauce, star anise, and the rendered essence of everything cooked within it—demands to be spooned over rice.
Po, The Warehouse Hotel: Nanyang Soul in a Contemporary Frame
Ambience
Po exists at the intersection of heritage and present tense, occupying a thoughtfully restored space within The Warehouse Hotel along the Singapore River. Exposed brick walls speak to the building’s industrial past, while contemporary art and carefully curated furniture pull the room firmly into now. Rattan chairs nod to shophouse dining rooms; pendant lights cast warm pools across blonde wood tables. Through large windows, the river flows past, its surface catching reflections of passing boats and the last light of day. The room feels lived-in rather than designed, as if these walls have witnessed countless meals and simply made space for one more.
Feast of Abundance: Where Cultures Converge on a Plate
The Signature Popiah Set arrives first, and immediately announces Po’s intentions. These aren’t the papery-thin spring rolls of Fujian tradition alone but rather their Peranakan evolution, where Chinese technique meets Malay spice and local ingredients. The wrapper, made fresh and almost translucent, gives way to a filling that tells a story: turnip braised with shrimp paste until sweet and savory become indistinguishable, crisp lettuce for texture, garlic chives for bite, and a crucial smear of sweet bean sauce and sambal that provides both comfort and heat. Crushed peanuts add crunch; fresh coriander offers an herbal lift. Each roll must be eaten quickly, before the wrapper softens and structural integrity fails. They taste of Sunday afternoons in Katong, of grandmothers’ kitchens where recipes pass through demonstration rather than text.
The Itek Sioh—duck braised with salted vegetables, tomatoes, and tamarind—arrives in a clay pot still bubbling from the kitchen’s heat. This is Peranakan comfort food elevated through careful sourcing and patient technique. The duck itself, likely braised for hours until the meat yields at the mere suggestion of a spoon, has absorbed the surrounding liquid’s complexity: sour from tamarind and tomatoes, salty from preserved mustard greens, rich from rendered duck fat. The vegetables have broken down into the gravy, thickening it and adding layers of umami. Whole pieces of tomato, softened but still intact, provide pockets of acid that cut through the richness. This is the kind of dish that improves over time, the flavors marrying and deepening, best eaten with rice that soaks up every drop of gravy.
The slow-braised one-treasure pot centers on abalone, that most prized of seafood, braised until tender in a master stock dark with soy and redolent of star anise, cinnamon, and dried tangerine peel. The abalone itself, sliced thick to showcase its quality, offers a texture unlike any other seafood—dense yet yielding, requiring careful chewing to release its subtle oceanic sweetness. Sea cucumber, prized more for texture and supposed health benefits than flavor, adds its characteristic crunch-then-yield. The sauce, reduced to a syrupy consistency, coats everything in glossy abundance.
The ee-fu noodles arrive as the meal’s denouement, these flat, wide ribbons having been fried until they develop a slight crisp before being tossed in a light sauce. They serve as vehicle for everything that came before, their mild flavor and satisfying chew providing comfort after courses of bold flavors and complex textures. Topped with shiitake mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, and a scatter of spring onions, they remind us that not every dish needs to shout to be heard.
Food Exchange, Novotel: Crimson Feast and Collective Joy
Ambience
Food Exchange doesn’t whisper—it celebrates at full volume. The vast space accommodates the controlled chaos of buffet dining, with stations arranged like a village marketplace: steamboat bubbling here, grills sizzling there, ice beds supporting pyramids of prawns and crabs. Families cluster around tables dressed in red and gold, children darting between courses, grandparents settling in for the long haul. A lion dance troupe—golden mane flowing, drums thundering—weaves between tables on reunion night, bringing blessings and barely contained excitement. This isn’t the place for quiet contemplation but for the joyful noise of extended families gathering, for the clatter of many plates and the layered conversations of multiple generations sharing space and food.
The Steamboat Experience: Democracy at the Table
The steamboat setup offers a choose-your-own-adventure approach to reunion dining. Divided pots allow each table to select multiple broths simultaneously: laksa, rich with coconut milk and prawn stock, surface glistening with chili oil; mala, numbing with Sichuan peppercorns and hot with dried chilies; clear herbal broth for those seeking gentler flavors; and tom yum, sharp with lemongrass and galangal. The ingredients station stretches long, offering over eighty choices that range from expected to exotic.
Premium seafood claims pride of place: Boston lobster, split and ready for the pot; tiger prawns, their shells still showing ocean colors; fresh scallops, translucent and sweet; sea bass fillets that cook in seconds. The meat selection runs deep—marbled wagyu that turns tender in moments, thin-sliced pork belly that releases its fat into the broth, forming flavor, and meatballs of every variety, some studded with century egg, others wrapped in tofu skin.
The vegetables and accompaniments tell their own story: trumpet mushrooms that absorb broth like sponges; wood ear fungus that provides crunch; multiple varieties of tofu, from silken blocks that tremble on the spoon to fried versions that float like golden pillows; glass noodles that become translucent in the cooking; and handmade fish paste molded into balls or spread on leaves.
The beauty of steamboat lies in its evolution—the broth grows richer with each ingredient added, becoming a collective creation. By meal’s end, the liquid has transformed into something no single person could have planned, a soup that tastes of every choice made, every ingredient chosen, every family member’s preference accommodated.
The live grill stations offer respite from the soup, with satay being painted with sweet soy glaze, whole fish being scored and grilled until skin crisps and flesh flakes, and vegetables being charred just enough to concentrate their sugars while maintaining structure.
Restaurant Cougar Lee: East Meets West in Intimate Dialogue
Ambience
Restaurant Cougar Lee occupies a corner along Tanjong Pagar’s Tras Street, its storefront unassuming enough to walk past without notice. Inside, the space unfolds in warm neutrals—cream walls, natural wood tables, subtle lighting that makes every dish look like a painting. Seating maybe thirty at capacity, the room encourages conversation to flow across tables, especially when Chef Ethan Lee emerges from the kitchen to explain dishes in a blend of Mandarin-accented English, enthusiasm overriding any language barrier. This is dining as family affair, with Lee’s wife managing service and his relatives often helping in the kitchen, creating an atmosphere where guests feel less like customers and more like dinner party invitees who happen to have paid for the privilege.
The CNY Eve Set: Fusion as Philosophy
The chutoro and amberjack yu sheng announces Cougar Lee’s intentions immediately—this will not be a traditional reunion meal. The fatty tuna belly, normally reserved for sashimi presentations, has been sliced thin and arranged with precision, its pale pink flesh marbled with cream-colored fat. The amberjack, firmer and more assertive, provides textural contrast. Rather than the usual rainbow of pickled vegetables, the accompaniments lean European: microgreens, edible flowers, a drizzle of aged balsamic that adds sweet-tart complexity without overwhelming the fish. The tossing still happens—this is yu sheng, after all—but the resulting salad tastes more like a high-end crudo than a traditional Lunar New Year opener.
The Iberico pork-stuffed lychee represents fusion at its most playful. Fresh lychees, their translucent white flesh sweet and floral, have been pitted and filled with a mousse of Iberico pork, that prized Spanish ham whose richness comes from acorn-fed pigs. The combination—cool fruit, silky pork fat, a whisper of salt—shouldn’t work but absolutely does, creating a single bite that moves from sweet to savory to umami in seconds. It’s served on a white plate with minimal garnish, the presentation allowing the absurdity and brilliance of the concept to speak for itself.
The 18-year braised platter demands explanation, which Lee provides with obvious pride. Various components—sea cucumber, fish maw, shiitake mushrooms, and vegetables—have been braised in a master stock that the restaurant inherited and has been adding to, feeding, and nurturing for nearly two decades. Master stocks, common in Chinese kitchens, gain complexity with age, each cooking session adding depth. This particular stock tastes of countless chickens, generations of pork bones, years of soy sauce and spices, creating a flavor that simply cannot be replicated or rushed. The ingredients cooked in it absorb this history, becoming vehicles for accumulated time and care.
The live lobster with champagne blanc arrives still steaming, the crustacean having been wok-fried at breath-taking heat before being finished with a sauce of champagne, butter, and aromatics. The dish bridges Chinese wok technique with French sauce-making, resulting in lobster meat that maintains its sweetness and texture while being enrobed in a sauce that tastes of celebration itself—effervescent, rich, slightly acidic, with the char of high-heat cooking lingering in each bite.
The DIY dumpling session that concludes the meal transforms diners into participants. Lee’s team provides everything: soft dumpling wrappers, a choice of fillings, instruction on proper folding technique (though perfection is neither expected nor required), and boiling water to cook the results. There’s something profoundly satisfying about eating dumplings you’ve folded yourself, even if they leak or look lumpy, especially after courses of precisely executed cuisine. It returns the meal to its roots—reunion dining as collective activity, not passive consumption.
Tien Court: Teochew Tradition Holds the Table
Ambience
Tien Court occupies the second floor of Copthorne King’s Hotel, a location that prioritizes function over fashion. The main dining room, spacious and traditionally appointed with round tables and lazy Susans, accommodates larger groups with ease. But the private rooms are where Tien Court truly shines—five separate spaces that can host anywhere from ten to forty guests, each closed off from the dining room’s bustle. These rooms feel separate from the hotel entirely, their red and gold color schemes, Chinese landscape paintings, and carved wooden details creating a cocoon where time moves differently. Background music plays at a whisper if at all; the focus remains entirely on the table and those gathered around it.
Sweet Happiness Set: The Comfort of Familiar Flavors
The Prosperity Salmon Yu Sheng here takes the traditional route—no fusion experiments or ingredient substitutions. The salmon, likely Norwegian or Scottish, has been sliced thick rather than thin, giving it presence rather than delicacy. The vegetables—carrot, daikon, cucumber—have been julienned with precise uniformity, their bright colors arranged in neat sections. The crackers, fried until golden and still slightly warm, provide necessary crunch. As the table stands to toss, the movements feel ritualistic, each upward lift accompanied by wishes for prosperity, health, longevity. The resulting salad, once everyone has served themselves, offers exactly what’s expected: sweet, crunchy, fresh, a communal moment that marks the meal’s official beginning.
The braised pumpkin soup with bird’s nest arrives in individual bowls, steam rising to reveal a golden liquid that glows under the private room’s lighting. The pumpkin, cooked until completely soft and blended smooth, provides a naturally sweet base, its earthiness grounding the more expensive bird’s nest. The strands of nest, suspended in the thick soup, add textural interest and visual appeal—proof that premium ingredients have been employed. The soup itself coats the spoon heavily, almost like a thin porridge, nourishing in a way that clear broths cannot achieve. This is grandmother cooking elevated through ingredient quality rather than technique complexity.
The premium abalone with fish maw represents Teochew braising at its finest. The abalone, likely simmered for hours in a master stock enriched with chicken, dried scallops, and Chinese mushrooms, has reached that perfect state of tenderness—requiring chewing but not struggle, releasing sweet ocean flavor gradually rather than all at once. The fish maw, prized for its collagen content and supposed benefits to skin and joints, provides textural variety—soft yet springy, absorbing the rich braising liquid like a sponge. Baby bok choy, blanched until bright green and barely tender, provides a necessary fresh element, cutting through the dish’s richness.
The Teochew braised duck arrives whole or half, depending on table size, its skin lacquered dark brown and glistening with sauce. This preparation—duck braised in a mixture of soy sauce, star anise, cinnamon, galangal, and coriander seeds—results in meat that pulls easily from the bone, fat that has rendered into the cooking liquid, and a flavor profile that balances salty, sweet, and warming spice. Teochew braising differs from Cantonese preparations in its use of southern Chinese spices and longer cooking times, creating dishes that taste both lighter and more complexly spiced than their Hong Kong counterparts.
The black truffle glutinous rice arrives in a lotus leaf, its opening releasing a cloud of fragrant steam. The rice itself, sticky and substantial, has been wok-fried with diced Chinese sausage (sweet and fatty), dried shrimp (providing mineral depth), shiitake mushrooms, and enough black truffle to perfume the entire dish without overwhelming it. Each grain of rice carries flavor, having absorbed the cooking liquid and the essences of everything cooked with it. This is rice as main attraction rather than accompaniment, substantial enough to satisfy on its own yet designed for sharing.
The traditional dessert pairing—often nian gao and tang yuan—returns the meal to ritual. The nian gao, steamed until soft and glossy, offers sweetness and the slight resistance that glutinous rice flour provides. The tang yuan, those spheres of rice flour filled with black sesame or peanut paste and served in ginger-infused sugar water, represent family unity and the hope that everyone will remain together in the year ahead. Biting through the tender wrapper to reach the molten center—nutty, sweet, sliding across the tongue—provides a gentle ending to a meal built on generational continuity.
The Threads That Bind
Across every establishment, certain themes emerge like threads in brocade. The yu sheng, whether traditional or reimagined, opens meals with collective action—the standing, the tossing, the wishes shouted above the chaos. Abalone appears repeatedly, its status as luxury ingredient unchanged despite changing tastes, still judged by head count and tenderness, still commanding center-table placement. Fish maw, sea cucumber, bird’s nest—ingredients prized more for rarity and supposed health benefits than dramatic flavor—mark dishes as special, as worthy of the occasion.
But the real constant is the table itself, that space where families gather regardless of the building housing them or the specific dishes served. These reunion meals function as annual checkpoints, moments to assess who’s present, who’s missing, who’s new. The food matters enormously—hours of preparation and ingredient sourcing prove that—but it also doesn’t matter at all. It’s the gathering that counts, the plates passed, the tea poured, the conversations that range from mundane to meaningful, sometimes within the same breath.
Singapore’s Chinese New Year dining landscape in 2026 offers something for every kind of reunion, from the boisterous to the contemplative, from the traditional to the experimental. The table remains set, the ingredients are prepared, the kitchens stand ready. All that’s needed now is the gathering itself, that annual miracle of coordination and compromise that brings families together despite busy schedules and geographic dispersal.
May the meals shared be delicious, the company cherished, and the year ahead abundant in all things that matter.