Underdog Inn sits in a back alley off Amoy Street in Telok Ayer, behind a door most passers-by walk straight past. It comes from the team behind Sago House and Low Tide, and reads as a New York tavern transplanted to Singapore. Plush banquettes, street-art panels and works echoing Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat set the tone.
The bar opened in early 2023 as another venue from founder Jay Gray's group, a launch DRiNK Magazine covered alongside the neighbouring Ghostwriter project. The pedigree shows in the drinks rather than the décor, which stays scrappy on purpose.
The drinks list is the draw. Robb Report Singapore counts twelve draught cocktails poured on rotation alongside a short beer lineup, with the menu styled as a comic book that traces the rise of hip hop in New York. Named pours include God vs Law, Black and Yellow, the Mezcal Sour and a Whisky Highball.
The comic-book menu is more than a gimmick. Each draught cocktail maps to a panel in the hip-hop narrative, which gives a table an easy way to order by mood rather than by spirit, and keeps the list open to anyone outside the cocktail-nerd circuit.
Draught service keeps the pace quick and the prices honest for the area. The format trades bespoke shaking for consistency, which suits a room built for a second and third round rather than a single showpiece drink.
The kitchen runs nose-to-tail and fire-only, a direction SPIRITED highlighted when the bar opened. Plates lean to fire-cooked cuts, offal and shared dishes, with the bar bites designed to keep pace with the cocktails rather than upstage them.
Regulars tend to start with the lighter highballs and work toward the Mezcal Sour as the night builds. The fire kitchen is best treated as a run of shared plates rather than a sit-down dinner, given the portion sizes reviewers flag.
Who would love it: people who want strong drinks, loud music and food with an edge, all without a dress code. Who should skip it: anyone after a hushed, white-glove cocktail temple, since the energy here runs closer to a dive than a salon.
The room is small and fills fast on weekends. Reviews on Foodadvisor and Burpple note the cozy scale and the warmth of the service, while flagging that portions run small against the prices, a fair caution for anyone planning to make a meal of it.
Hours run evenings from Wednesday through Sunday, opening around 5pm and closing past midnight on the busiest nights. The alley door is easy to miss, and Telok Ayer puts a dozen other bars within a short walk, so it works as a first stop or a late one.
It pairs naturally with the wider Sago House cluster and the Telok Ayer cocktail run. See where it lands in our best cocktail bars in Singapore guide, or browse more rooms in our Singapore bar guide.
Sources: Robb Report Singapore, DRiNK Magazine, SPIRITED, official underdoginn.com, Foodadvisor
