Nutmeg & Clove holds a small room at 8 Purvis Street, off Beach Road in central Singapore, behind a pink-walled front hung with graphic posters of city landmarks. It is one of the country's most decorated cocktail bars, ranked 24th on Asia's 50 Best Bars 2025 and 50th on the World's 50 Best Bars list the same year.
The pitch is a heritage-led cocktail bar that reads the city through its drinks, built for people who want a menu with a point of view. The bar's concept draws on Singapore's history and its mixed culture, per The World's 50 Best Bars, which is why each drink tends to carry a local reference. Anyone after a loud, casual night should look elsewhere, because the focus here is the cocktail and the story behind it.
The room is intimate and softly lit, with woven lamps overhead and pastel pink walls that set it apart from the hotel bars nearby. The small footprint keeps the bar close to the guest, which suits a menu built to be talked through. The look is local and personal rather than a polished hotel template, and that is part of the draw.
Order from the heritage menu rather than asking for a classic, since the house drinks are the reason the room ranks. The list changes as the team revisits the city's flavours, so a flight built with the bartender is the way to read it. For a first visit, leaning on the bar for guidance gets a newcomer to the better drinks faster than the menu alone.
The heritage angle is what sets the bar apart from the polished hotel rooms a few streets over, since the drinks reach for local flavours rather than a global house style. That focus is the reason the room has held a top-25 place on Asia's 50 Best, and it gives a visitor a clear sense of place in the glass. The look, all pink walls and woven lamps, backs the same idea.
The small footprint is both the charm and the catch, since it keeps the bar close and the service warm but fills the room fast on a busy night. A reservation is the difference between a seat at the bar and a wait at the door. The drinks sit at the higher end, which fits a bar built around a considered, ever-changing menu rather than volume.
The crowd is a cocktail crowd, a mix of locals, in-the-know visitors and 50 Best chasers working through Singapore's ranked rooms. Reviewers on Tripadvisor return to the inventive, heritage-led drinks and the warm service as the draw, while noting the room is small and books up. The shared advice is to reserve and to go in ready to follow the bar's lead.
Getting there is easy from Bugis and the Beach Road hotels, which puts it on a natural route between the city's ranked cocktail bars. Nutmeg & Clove pairs well with the other Singapore 50 Best rooms for drinkers building a night around the city's best lists.
One practical note: the bar sits on Purvis Street among a row of restaurants, so an early dinner nearby pairs naturally with a late seat here. The menu leans on local references that reward a question to the bartender rather than a quick scan. A reservation matters in a room this small, especially on a weekend when the 50 Best crowd arrives.
Best time to go is early in the evening before the small room fills. Who it is for: a heritage cocktail flight, a date and a 50 Best tick. For more rooms like it, see our best cocktail bars in Singapore guide, the wider Singapore bar guide, and our pillar on the best cocktail bars worldwide.
Sources: The World's 50 Best Bars, Asia 2025 (No. 24); The World's 50 Best Bars 2025; Nutmeg and Clove official site; Tripadvisor Nutmeg and Clove
