12 Best Hainanese Restaurants in Singapore (2026)

Hainanese cuisine is one of Singapore's most quietly influential food traditions, shaped by immigrants who cooked in colonial kitchens and on British ships before opening their own coffee shops and eating houses. Beyond the famous chicken rice lie pork chops, curry rice, beef noodles, herbal mutton soup and Russian-inflected steaks. This guide gathers twelve real, currently-operating Hainanese eateries in Singapore, each checked against its own website or recent listings. Treat it as a shortlist to explore rather than a strict ranking.

Chin Chin Eating House has served old-school Hainanese fare on Purvis Street, in the heart of Singapore's original Hainanese enclave, since the 1930s. Its menu reads like a heritage roll-call: poached Hainanese chicken rice, a breaded pork chop in tomato-based sauce that nods to colonial-era Western cooking, chap chye and mutton soup. The setting is a plain, unfussy corner eating house rather than a modern restaurant, and it remains a reliable stop for classic Hainanese dishes in the Bugis area.

Purvis Street (Bugis)
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Sing Swee Kee sits on Seah Street, which it describes as part of the traditional Hainanese enclave of Singapore, and frames itself as a keeper of authentic Hainanese cuisine. Alongside its signature chicken rice, the restaurant's own menu lists heritage specialities such as chicken-rice balls, chicken curry and mutton soup. It carries a name long associated with Singapore's Hainanese chicken rice story, and offers a sit-down, air-conditioned setting near Bras Basah that suits both a quick lunch and a fuller Hainanese spread.

Seah Street (City Hall)
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British Hainan builds its whole concept around the Hainanese chefs who once cooked aboard British ships and in colonial households, then brought those Western techniques home. Its menu leans into that lineage with dishes it lists as traditional oxtail stew, braised lamb shank, Hainanese pork chop, herbal mutton soup, curry rice and beef stew. Located at Kallang Way, it presents Hainanese-Western heritage food in a contemporary casual-dining format, making it a good introduction to the colonial-influenced side of Hainanese cooking.

Kallang
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Shashlik is a Russo-Hainanese restaurant tucked inside Far East Shopping Centre on Orchard Road, tracing its lineage to the 1960s Troika Restaurant, where Hainanese cooks adapted Russian recipes; former staff reopened it as Shashlik in 1986. It is listed on the National Heritage Board's heritage business registry. The kitchen still turns out borsch, oxtail stew, flambeed skewers and Baked Alaska, served old-school by waiters in bow ties. Expect a nostalgic, sit-down experience rather than a casual one.

Orchard
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Colbar - short for 'colonial bar' - began in 1953 as a canteen for British troops and has kept its 1950s look through a careful move to Wessex Estate. It is one of Singapore's oldest surviving Hainanese-Western 'kopitiams', serving old-school chicken chop, pork cutlet, fried rice and toasted-bread breakfasts in a green, kampong-like setting. Tucked away near One-north, it trades on nostalgia and a laid-back, pet-friendly alfresco atmosphere rather than polish, and is a fine spot for heritage Western-Hainanese comfort food.

Wessex Estate (Queenstown)
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Han's grew from a late-1970s family bakery in the Bras Basah area - long a hub of Singapore's Hainanese community - into a cafe chain with outlets across the island. Its founder's family roots run through the city's Hainanese coffee-shop trade, and the menu pairs Western grills and cakes with homely Hainanese-Western favourites such as pork chop and beef hor fun. Reliable, affordable and family-friendly, Han's is less a heritage relic than a modern, everyday expression of the Hainanese-Western dining tradition.

Islandwide
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Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice has been ladling its namesake dish since 1946 and now trades from Tiong Bahru Market, run by a second-generation owner using the family's long-standing curry recipe. Hainanese curry rice is the draw: white rice doused in a dark, mildly spiced curry gravy and piled with crispy pork chop, braised pork belly, cabbage, egg and other zi-char-style sides. It is a no-frills hawker stall known for queues, best visited early in the day before the popular dishes run out.

Tiong Bahru
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Beach Road Scissor-Cut Curry Rice is a late-night curry-rice institution in Jalan Besar that traces its Hainanese roots to the 1930s. Its quirk is in the name: staff snip the pork chop, chicken chop and other toppings with scissors before drowning everything in curry gravy over rice. The dish reflects the Hainanese knack for blending British, Peranakan and Chinese influences into something wholly local. Open until the small hours, it is a classic supper stop rather than a formal restaurant.

Jalan Besar
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Kheng Fatt Hainanese Beef Noodles is a Golden Mile Food Centre stall that has specialised in Hainanese-style beef noodles since the late 1970s. The signature bowl layers rice noodles with tender sliced beef, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts and coriander, bound by a thick, gooey brown gravy; add-ons like beef balls, tripe and tendon let you build a heartier bowl. Hainanese beef noodles are a lesser-known corner of the cuisine, and this long-running stall is one of the more dependable places to try them.

Beach Road (Golden Mile Food Centre)
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Killiney Kopitiam traces its origins to a Hainanese coffee shop opened on Killiney Road in 1919, and is often cited as Singapore's oldest surviving Hainanese kopitiam. The flagship still serves the traditional breakfast trinity - charcoal-toasted bread with homemade kaya, soft-boiled eggs and thick local coffee - while newer outlets add local mains such as laksa and curry chicken. It captures the Hainanese coffee-shop tradition that shaped Singapore's kopi culture, and has grown into a small chain with branches across the island.

Killiney Road (Somerset) and islandwide
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Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup is a hawker stall at Pasir Panjang Food Centre devoted to one comforting speciality: a fragrant, herb-steeped mutton soup simmered in the Hainanese style. Opened around 2000 by a Hainanese cook, it serves the soup with tender mutton, and offers variations with tendon or tripe for those who want more texture. Herbal mutton soup is a distinctive, often-overlooked Hainanese dish, and this stall is a well-known place to seek it out. It typically opens daytime through early evening.

Pasir Panjang
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Golden Mile Thien Kee Steamboat began as a Middle Road food stall in 1952 and has long anchored Golden Mile Tower, serving what it calls authentic Hainanese-style steamboat. The draw is a comforting hotpot of sliced fish, liver, cockles, squid and greens cooked at the table in clear stock, paired with the restaurant's Hainanese chicken rice and satay. With more than seventy years of history and a newer Havelock outlet, it is a good pick for a communal, old-school Hainanese steamboat meal.

Beach Road (Golden Mile Tower)
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