Is colonial-chic dining still in vogue in Singapore, 59 years after independence?

SINGAPORE – Tucked around the corner of The Robertson House, in a quiet back alley, is a nondescript black door. Ordinarily, you might be hesitant to step through strange portals in strange places, but something about this door draws you to it.

You stop and sniff. You catch a whiff of a pungent yet calming aroma.

Entering transports you back in time.

You find yourself in what looks like a 19th-century opium den. There is a bed to recline on and a pipe at its centre. Illustrations of labourers smoking opium plaster the walls and the heady fragrance of the drug – or rather, an incense meant to simulate its scent – fills your nostrils. 

This, you are told, is where J. Murray Robertson, a prominent colonial-era Municipal Councillor, entertained his less savoury contacts, like triad leaders. 

Except Robertson is long dead and opium now illegal in Singapore.

The “den” – really a speakeasy that is 19th century in spirit, but with the sleek trappings of 21st-century luxury – now hosts affluent in-the-know locals and tourists, rather than society’s most vulnerable members. 

Almost six decades after the sun finally set on this corner of the once-vast British Empire, the allure of that now-controversial era has yet to fade. Restaurants and bars across the island still pay tribute to its figures, aesthetic and ethos. 

A few steps down from Chandu – the opium den-themed speakeasy whose name, which means “opium” in Malay, sort of gives its secret away – is Entrepot.

This Anglo-Asian restaurant is modelled on the premise: What would it serve if Robertson showed up to dinner tonight? 

“We imagine that this house belongs to Robertson. The general manager is the head of his house and I’m his personal chef. The menu is what we would serve him if he were still around,” head chef Nixon Low, 38, tells The Straits Times. 

Drawing up a menu that would potentially appeal to a colonial officer required considerable historical research.

Chef Low and his team dug up 19th-century recipes at the library, fusing Western staples with Asian influences. The resulting menu contains dishes like “Itek Sio” Tamarind Braised Cherry Valley Duck ($54), a Peranakan dish cooked with European techniques, and Dr Robertson’s Chai Poached Apple Crumble ($16), which injects some Asian flair into the traditional British dessert. 

Like many colonial-themed restaurants, it adopts a black-and-white scheme, inspired by the distinctive architecture of the era.

1819 Aliwal, a restaurant in Kampong Glam named after the year Sir Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore, is also decked out in monochromatic finishes, favoured by owner Hamdan Zakaria, 50, for their “nostalgic and evergreen” feeling. 

Meanwhile, the aptly named Colony restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore invokes the spectre of empire through pictures of Queen Victoria – the monarch who reigned over the British Empire at its zenith – and imperial posters, which line its walls. 

Then, of course, there is the most quintessentially colonial of hotels: the Raffles Singapore. Within its whitewashed walls sits the Long Bar, one of the few places in the country where patrons are encouraged to litter. 

The tossing of peanut shells is apparently an old planter practice, fitting for a bar meant to evoke the languorous luxury of 1920s Malayan plantations. It is even outfitted with punkah ceiling fans, sans the Tamil servants who were traditionally tasked with operating these contraptions.

Problematic past? 

But the colonial period was not just a time of intrepid explorers and tropical bliss.

It was also pervaded by poverty, exploitative labour structures and racial discrimination. And, occasionally, businesses that try to evoke the romance of that era have had to contend with backlash. 

Old Seng Choong, a local bakery that sells cakes and cookies inspired by local dishes like laksa and cereal prawn, received a long e-mail from a customer in 2018, complaining that its Colonial Days series – which promises to “recapture those nostalgic flavours of our colonial past” – was insensitive to Singaporeans who suffered as labourers under the imperial regime. 

In response, founder Daniel Tay, 54, instructed his marketing team to dial down the promotion of its Colonial Days cookies, though the product line can still be found in its stores. 

Other restaurants try to skirt controversy by foregrounding less contentious aspects of the colonial period.

“We want to focus on food heritage, rather than the wider politics of the colonial era,” says Mr Pieter Teune, 42, hotel manager of The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore.

“The colonial era was really interesting from a food perspective. That was when these different cultures and culinary inputs were arriving in Singapore, and turned it into a culinary centre point of the world.” 

Colony’s buffet line-up reflects that diversity, stacking Western mains like slow-roasted beef brisket alongside local delicacies like laksa and chicken rice. 

Because the focus is kept on the food, Mr Teune says the hotel has not received any negative feedback from customers regarding its colonial theme. 

The team behind Entrepot and Chandu, meanwhile, has no qualms facing up to the seedier underbelly of colonial life. 

“We’re not trying to romanticise the past, but present customers with an authentic historical experience. It wasn’t a bed of roses, it wasn’t all smooth,” says chef Low, explaining that Entrepot and Chandu are meant to act as two sides of the same coin. 

Chandu, he adds, is meant to spark conversation. “Some visitors will tell us that their grandmothers used to smoke opium. We want to encourage people to talk about the space, and find resonance within their own lives.” 

But Mr Faris Joraimi, a PhD student at New York University who specialises in the history of the Malay world, says any “authentic” re-creation of colonial life has to properly acknowledge the colonial government’s role in encouraging the proliferation of opium, and its brutal impact on the underprivileged. 

Plus, no commodification of colonisation can be truly neutral, argues Dr Syed Farid Alatas, a professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

“Colonisation was about a superior power invading and conquering. They introduced racist ideas – some of which are still around today – scientific racism, and separated entire populations from their heritage. We have to tell the story of colonisation for what it was,” he asserts.

“Would people go to a restaurant that thematises a Japanese general from the Japanese Occupation? They wouldn’t. They would feel offended,” adds the academic, who also penned the introduction to the 2020 reprint of Thomas Stamford Raffles: Schemer Or Reformer?, a revisionist work by his late father, Syed Hussein Alatas.

And yet, while the symbols of imperial Japan remain shunned in Singapore, the country has come to embrace all other things Japanese. 

“We have no problem with Zen interiors even though Japan did all of that to us during the war,” points out Mr Nizam Malik, 45, manager of 1819 Aliwal. “With history, it is what it is. Design is design, it’s not about colonialism any more.” 

Indian chef Priyam Chatterjee, 36, who helms Roia, a French fusion restaurant housed in a black-and-white bungalow at the Botanic Gardens, has likewise come to terms with the European influences behind his cooking and culture.

“Kolkata, where I come from, has always been very pro-Western. My upbringing involved Western art, history and great food. History was bitter, but it’s bitter for everybody. We move past it and we’ve come so far now,” he says.

Besides, says Dr Donna Brunero, a senior lecturer in history at NUS, the age of decolonisation and the repurposing of imperial institutions for the enjoyment of locals has defanged these symbols of empire, in some cases even flipping them on their head. 

“Bringing local food and influences into a space that used to be very colonial is almost like reclaiming a space that may have not been so open to locals back in the colonial era.” 

Still, she warns that any attempt to portray the British Empire as more benign than it actually was cannot avoid deeper questions about who would actually have been welcomed to dine in the 19th century, and who would instead have waited tables.

Mr Faris does not quite agree that the continual use of colonial dining spaces is necessarily an empowering move.

“If restaurants glorify white European figures and culture, it accords them a certain cachet. By consuming these experiences, you’re reinforcing them as symbols of prestige and luxury. And a lot of this prestige was based on differentiating them from what was less prestigious or civilised, so it perpetuates a Eurocentric ideal of what’s desirable, what’s worth aspiring to,” he adds.

Anger or ambivalence? 

While greater efforts have been made to rethink Raffles’ legacy and place in Singapore’s history since 2019’s bicentennial, Mr Faris says that on the whole, most Singaporeans are not concerned with critically unpacking the question of colonialism, especially when dining out. 

As Dr Maurizio Peleggi, a history professor at NUS, puts it bluntly: “Truth is, no ordinary Singaporean cares about Raffles and the history of colonialism.”

Patrons ST spoke to said they were unbothered by the colonial trappings at restaurants like Colony and the Long Bar. 

“The ambience in the colonial bar setting created a very unique experience. It’s a bit like going back in time, seeing the way they did up the interior to keep the history of the bar intact,” says Ms Jasmine Lau, a housewife in her 40s, who visited the Long Bar in May. 

Civil servant Y.Q. Wang, 26, says: “My friends and I love Colony. It’s our happy place. The first few times, we were just not expecting to ponder the romanticisation of colonisation. But by the third visit, we were like, ‘Yup, here we are surrounded by pictures of men in colonial uniforms again’, and just got to eating.”

Historians say that this ambivalence towards a period in history that sometimes sparks violent emotions in other former colonies can be partially attributed to the tone set by the Singapore Government around the time of independence. 

“In some ways, choosing Raffles as a founding figure and retaining his statue signals continuity, in terms of governance, in terms of economic outlook, in terms of pragmatism, a sense of business as usual,” says historian Dr Brunero. 

“So even though at that point of time, you had a push for decolonisation in South-east Asia – the changing of street names, the removal of monuments related to colonial rule – in Singapore’s case, there was a clear decision to say we’re open for business, particularly for foreign companies, Western companies.” 

According to Dr Seng Guo-Quan, an assistant professor of history at NUS, Raffles also offered a tabula rasa, or clean slate, on which the authorities could etch a new society. 

“Our leaders wanted to make the case that Singapore was a melange of all the Asian civilisations. A lot of the other postcolonial nation building projects in South-east Asia were centred on reasserting their civilisation and identity, but we were always quite clear that Singapore was something new, with no high-culture elites.” 

Still, the way Singapore memorialises its colonial past occasionally comes under fire.

Most recently, the newly erected third public statue of Raffles at Fort Canning Park

drew flak for glorifying a historical figure whose ills are often overlooked.

Local poet Gwee Li Sui said in June that it suggested a “serious failure to reframe – or at least re-evaluate – received history 200 years later and a related insensitivity to both local history and global feelings about colonialism”.

However, he notes that there is a difference between a statue of Raffles and, say, the Raffles Hotel. 

“Unlike a brand, a statue takes a physical human form and therefore re-creates a human relationship. A colonial statue means a particular relationship regardless of what we may think it only commemorates. Especially when it is put in a very public space, our collective identity – and memory of the journey of that identity – are affected,” he tells ST.

In contrast, brands offer a choice. “If you find a brand distasteful, problematic or shallow, you can always opt out with your wallet, in the name of identity. In a way, commercial branding already factors in this price it has to pay. It knows it cannot make everyone consumers, and this is also why I am less bothered by it.” 

In a 2005 essay on consuming colonial nostalgia, Dr Peleggi noted that, “in the name of development, the hospitality industry is afforded some leeway with regard to national history, whose official representation continues to be found in history museums or the mausoleum of a nation’s founding father, where colonialism receives the bad press it deserves”.

Hence why monumentalised colonial hotels can provide grounds for the celebration of “colonialism’s good old days” decades later.

When asked by ST if expectations of hotels have since shifted, he says: “Why should a transnational commercial enterprise bother with offering ‘balanced’ views about history? Why should that be their job?” 

While moral policing may not be the most helpful approach, Dr Seng says it is not unreasonable to expect a certain amount of criticism around the framing of colonial subjects if it is done in a distasteful manner or hurts the feelings of some communities. 

Moving forward in a modern world 

Though the nostalgia of a bygone era will continue to appeal to consumers, academics say there are more effective ways to handle historical callbacks. 

Dr Seng suggests inviting scholars to give talks about the colonial setting and engage critically with its history. 

Dr Brunero adds that efforts to contextualise the heritage of colonial-era buildings through plaques and other infographics help visitors form a more complete view of the period. 

Putting more Asian voices in dialogue with the Eurocentric past could also be a step in the right direction, says Dr Farid. 

The Raffles Hotel, for instance, now has its first Singaporean writer-in-residence, with poet Madeleine Lee, 62, taking on the role in 2022. She follows in the footsteps of literary heavyweights such as British travel writer Pico Iyer, who became the first person to occupy that position in 2019. 

“It’s an honour, of course. Frankly speaking, there are so many other good writers here, so maybe they should have engaged with us much more. Still, I’m not complaining,” she says, adding that she felt a bit of pressure to nail her poetry collection, How To Build A Lux Hotel, because of the esteem of her predecessors. 

It is not just the written word that has a voice. Food, too, speaks volumes.

Roia’s chef Chatterjee is injecting more spice into his menu by fusing French food with his native Indian cuisine. For instance, he will be introducing a masala omelette with hazelnut thetcha – a Maharashtrian condiment usually made with green chilli and garlic. 

“I’ve found a country that’s a melting pot of many cultures. And every culture is extremely welcome in Singapore to showcase and express themselves. If you do it right and with honesty, it will be appreciated. This is the time to apply my Western training to my idea of what local food is,” he says. 

But he will not be doing away with the stately black-and-white decor of the Botanic Gardens colonial bungalow where his food is showcased any time soon. “As an immigrant, Singapore has given me the opportunity to express myself, so I have to do justice to this setting and uphold the legacy of building in my own way.” 

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the food, says Dr Seshan Ramaswami, associate professor of marketing education at Singapore Management University. 

“Ultimately, what Singaporeans care about is what they’ve always cared about the most about when it comes to food: quality, presentation, service and pricing.

“The nostalgia positioning will certainly attract attention for a while, but the symbolism is likely to be over-ridden by the sensory experience.”