Some dining rooms are merely beautiful. Others are woven into history.
Long before Singapore emerged as one of the world’s great gastronomic capitals, the grand dining room at Raffles Singapore was already hosting society balls, state banquets, and elegant evenings beneath its soaring colonial ceilings. It is here, within one of Asia’s most storied hospitality landmarks, that chef André Chiang has chosen to stage his homecoming.
His new restaurant, 1887 by André, is not simply another fine-dining opening in a city renowned for culinary excellence. It is an ambitious attempt to translate nearly 140 years of history onto the plate.
Occupying the former Raffles Grill, the restaurant takes its name from the year Raffles Singapore first welcomed guests. Yet rather than creating a conventional tasting menu, Chiang has conceived something far more evocative: a gastronomic journey through time itself.
For more than a year, the Singapore-born chef immersed himself in the hotel’s archives, studying historic menus, handwritten records, and forgotten culinary traditions that once defined dining at Raffles. Those discoveries now form the foundation of a menu comprising nearly 60 dishes, each representing a distinct chapter in the hotel’s remarkable evolution.
Victorian recipes, colonial influences, Singaporean flavors, and Chiang’s own celebrated culinary language unfold not in a linear sequence of courses, but as a carefully curated narrative spanning generations. Diners move through eras rather than merely through appetizers and mains, experiencing the cultural currents that shaped both Raffles Singapore and the city surrounding it.
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The setting is equally compelling.
Acclaimed designer Bill Bensley approached the restoration with characteristic theatricality while preserving the room’s historic soul. Original herringbone parquet floors, elegant arched colonnades, and the dining room’s celebrated colonial architecture remain intact, now enriched by Bensley’s richly layered, maximalist aesthetic. The result feels less like a restaurant and more like stepping into an opulent private salon where past and present converse effortlessly.
For Chiang, however, the project carries a significance that extends well beyond design or cuisine. Although his career has taken him across the globe, earning international acclaim and reshaping contemporary Asian gastronomy, Singapore has always remained central to his identity.
With 1887 by André, he returns not only to his hometown, but to the very cultural heritage that has informed his life’s work.
In an era when many luxury restaurants chase novelty, 1887 by André instead offers something increasingly rare: a profound sense of place, memory, and continuity. And within the walls of Raffles Singapore, few stages could be more fitting.
