The best Peranakan restaurants in Singapore

What started out as a successful private home dining business in Malaysia has since evolved into a standalone restaurant at Orchard Gateway. Chef-owner Danny Chew wanted to open a space where people could come together and bond over hearty Nonya grub. Which is why he named the restaurant Bonding Kitchen, and designed the space to feel like an extension of his home. The menu remains largely rooted in tradition, with Danny tapping into time-tested recipes to cook up a tender Hokkien lor ark ($22) and piquant sotong masak hitam ($20). Be sure to order the pong tauhu ($10), a lesser-seen heritage soup boiled for over 10 hours with bones of pork and mature hens, served with a plump meatball within. Even the kueh pie tee ($12) shells are made by hand. For a more modern take on the hearty flavours, sample the wagyu beef rendang ($32), best accompanied with spoonfuls of buah keluak fried rice ($15). 

Slowly but surely, Violet Oon is cementing her status as the doyenne of Peranakan food in Singapore. While the all-day dining destination serves Nonya favourites like dry laksa ($24) and ayam buah keluak ($23) that you find at her other restaurants, this outlet stands out for its focus on Singapore's colonial past.

There's mulligatawny soup ($16), a Eurasian dish with British-East Indian origins as well as Hainanese pork chops ($34) crusted with cream crackers – a throwback to the early Hainanese chefs' interpretation of British cuisine.

There's also a dedicated retail section at the front of the restaurant where you can pick up goodies like cashew cookies ($16/$30), sugee cookies ($16/$30) and handmade pineapple tarts ($28) so you don't have to wait around till Chinese New Year.

Colourful cakes line a long counter where you can pick up financiers ($28), pandan gula Melaka cakes ($43/$75) and Oon's signature carrot cake ($52).

Repping the Peranakan end of the mod-Sin spectrum, chef-owner Malcolm Lee cuts a pioneering figure on both the local and international stages – and he's even got a Michelin star to show for it. In keeping with the cuisine's penchant for borrowing influences from the East and West, dishes at Candlenut, now at COMO Dempsey, are gussied up with premium ingredients. Opt for Lee’s signature ‘ahmakase’ menu ($65/ lunch, $88/dinner) or order from the new à la carte menu. There's kueh pie tee ($20) stuffed with hamachi tartare, pickled shallot and laksa leaf pesto; buah keluak ($22) of braised local chicken and wagyu beef brisket rendang ($28). These are dishes that definitely go better with rice.

The Blue Ginger’s location smack in the middle of the CBD might explain why there’s a constant rotation of white-collar types and expats there looking to get acquainted with the cuisine. The star is the rolls of crispy ngoh hiang ($11.50) and punchy otah-otah ($4). If anything, it’s a convenient spot to take a colleague visiting from out of town for a dose of Peranakan Food 101 – without scaring him or her off with the cuisine’s more intense aromas.

Many might be familiar with the old Baba Chews and their comforting Nonya dishes. But the restaurant went through an overhaul – it now sits at the former site of the Joo Chiat Police Station, and the menu is much more diverse and unexpected. Familiar dishes are served with a twist, like the ngoh hiang ($15) that comes with a sweet calamansi dip; or the otah yu tiao ($12) made with charcoal dough fritter. Peranakan and Western flavours mingle further to give you unique dishes like fragrant chicken rendang lasagne ($18) and ayam buah keluak burger ($18).

Yes, Daisy's Dream Kitchen has a celebrity connection – Daisy the chef is the mother of Dim Sum Dolly, Selena Tan. The menu weaves the lore of the matron nurturing her clan, and how she’s passed the business down to her son, Ray, who's kept the flavours on point. Chunky ngoh hiang ($8) is rolled into balls so you have a maximum surface area of crisped bean curd skin to crunch into. A plate of robust squid ($12), dressed in its own ink, is coloured in flavours of deep caramel and smoke. And though the plates are a tad smaller than its peers, you'll come to understand why after chewing on the pulp of fragrant rempah that thickens a bowl of beef rendang ($12). Daisy’s seriously not cutting corners here – this place is indeed a dream for the palate.

Together with Rumah Bebe on Tanjong Katong Road and Kim Choo Kueh Chang down the Joo Chiat row, Guan Hoe Soon is one of the last few bastions for authentic dining in the historically Peranakan neighbourhood. Serving since 1953, shophouse dining room stocks a mini-museum of vintage tableware at the back. The chunky otah-otah ($8) becomes a fast favourite, as is the imposing, must-share portion of tangy assam pedas pomfret ($38). The menu includes a section dedicated to Chinese food, and unlike the soya-rich chap chyes ($10) found elsewhere, Guan Hoe Soon’s reads almost Sino, with strong tones of shitake and oyster sauce.

What began as a private diner in an HDB flat, Rumah Baba Fred finds new life in a charming Peranakan shophouse in Geylang. Now, Baba Fred teams up with his daughter, Elizabeth, to serve up real Peranakan goodness to satisfy the bellies of gastronomes alike. The 10-course private dinner journeys tastebuds across Peranakan classics done right: think Ayam Sioh, Babi Pongtay, Petai Prawns and plenty more. In efforts to preserve the Perakanan heritage, the dynamic duo would also pepper each dining experience with stories, artefacts, history and culture of the Peranakans.

You might have to wait for over a month to dine at Nonya Bong, but your patience will be rewarded with the homely dishes prepared by Jeffrey Chia. The seasoned 68-year-old chef delights with uncommon recipes that are rarely found in restaurants. The hati babi bungkus, for instance, made up of minced pork and liver wrapped in pig’s caul, is a favourite among diners. 

Raymond Leong has always been fascinated by Nonya food, so much so that after his retirement, he enrolled in a cooking school in Kuala Lumpur to learn all about the cuisine. 74 different recipes to be exact. When you do visit The Ampang Kitchen, just ask the welcoming host and he will be happy to share more about his Penang-style Peranakan food as you chow down on his satay bohong and ayam buah keluak. 

It’s deadly with hydrogen cyanide – until someone with an (incredibly) bright idea came up with a way to make it edible: boil the seed, bury it in a mix of ash and soil, then leave it to ferment for 40 days. You would think its name, which translates to 'the fruit that nauseates' in Bahasa, is enough warning to stay away, but this blackened, earthy nut – usually cooked with pork or chicken – has pretty much become the de facto poster ingredient for the cuisine.

Used as a food dye, cooks boil blue pea blossoms and sprinkle streaks of this shade of azure over glutinous rice dishes like kueh salat and Nyonya chang. 

Nyonya cooks were using candlenuts as a thickener even before this current fad of nut butters came along. Ground up with rempah and cooked – essential, otherwise you'll find yourself down with a bad case of the runs – you'll find this in chicken curries and good rempah-based chap chyes. 

The smell of mortar and pestle-flattened dried shrimp on a hot, oiled wok can best be described as the embodiment of salt. Like its smell, the ingredient (also known as hae bi) can complement a veggie fry-up, or hold its own with chilli. 

Extracted from the bulbous pods of the tamarind tree by boiling, the tart juice is a vital part of the Peranakan diet in seafood curries, fried with prawns and, yup, in Penang assam laksa.