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The honeycomb facade of the DUO Towers seen from the street below, the panels folding against the sky

Inspection · Singapore

Andaz Singapore

A vertical hotel inside Ole Scheeren's honeycomb towers, with André Fu reading the shophouse alleys of Kampong Glam back into the rooms. Everything happens between the twenty-fifth floor and the thirty-ninth.

King with Shower Virtuoso, Hyatt Privé

Book Andaz Singapore with me, through Classic Travel Register first, free of charge, and the rates and partner benefits open up, with the account linked to Wheresnik. Tell me your dates before you book and I will say which room to ask for here, and which week I would avoid.

Andaz Singapore is a hotel you ride up into. It occupies the upper floors of the DUO Towers, the pair of buildings on Fraser Street with the honeycomb skin that bends as it rises, and everything that matters here sits between the twenty-fifth floor and the thirty-ninth. There is no grand ground-floor lobby, because the ground floor is the city. You go up, and the city stays in the glass.

A twenty-five metre infinity pool on a high terrace, loungers along one side and the towers of Singapore behind it
The pool on the twenty-fifth floor. It is warm all year without being heated, because here the weather does that.

The towers are Ole Scheeren's. The interiors are André Fu's, and that is the part that stops this being a tall room with a view. Fu went down into Kampong Glam and Little India, the neighbourhoods at the foot of the building, and brought the shophouses back up with him: mustard and ochre, timber, woven textures, the proportions of a small street translated into a very large building. The result is a hotel that reads as local from the inside, which is not a trick many towers manage.

A bed with white linen under a curved headboard, with reading lights and a timber bedside shelf
The bed, with the headboard curved and lit from behind. The room is thirty-eight square metres and uses all of them.
A stone bathroom with a round lit mirror, a long vanity and a stool beside folded towels
The bathroom. The round mirror is the one piece that tells you a designer was here.
A room with floor-to-ceiling glass looking onto the towers of the city, a daybed along the window
The glass runs floor to ceiling in all three hundred and forty-two rooms. This is the city side.
A pair of flip-flops printed Stolen from Andaz, wrapped, beside a card reading Shine On
The slippers say Stolen from Andaz, which is the brand's register in one object.
A folded newspaper headed The Andaz Times beside a handwritten welcome note
The Andaz Times and a handwritten note. Somebody wrote mine by hand and used my name.
Four amenity boxes in printed card, patterned in orange and purple, on a timber shelf
The amenity boxes. Each one is a different print, and they are the only loud thing in the room.

The view is the other half of the room, and which way it points changes the stay. One side gives you the skyline and the bay. The other looks down onto the low roofs of the shophouse quarters, which from the thirtieth floor read as a different city entirely, laid out in red tile under the towers.

The city seen from high up, towers and low buildings under a heavy sky
Looking out in the late afternoon. The weather here arrives in the window before it arrives in the street.
Rows of shophouse roofs seen from high above, framed by the honeycomb facade
The other direction. Those roofs are Kampong Glam, and they start at the foot of the building.
The honeycomb towers seen from below, the panels folding outwards against the sky
The towers from Fraser Street. The facade is Ole Scheeren's, and it is worth standing under once.

Where you eat

The food is stacked through the building, and the hotel's clearest idea is on the twenty-fifth floor. Alley on 25 takes the hawker centre, the covered market that is how this city actually eats, and rebuilds it as a set of open kitchens. Laksa and dim sum come off the same floor as the international stations, and the cooking happens in front of you. It is street food taken seriously in a room with a view, which is a harder balance than it sounds.

An open kitchen counter with a chef working behind it, stools set along the front
Alley on 25. You sit at the counter and watch the dish being made, the way you would downstairs.
A dining room in pale stone and green timber with tables set along a window wall
The room it sits in, which is calmer than a hawker centre and deliberately so.
A lounge with cream armchairs and a patterned rug, a sculpture on a low table
A sitting room on the same floor, for the hours between meals.

Alongside it there is 5 ON 25, the Cantonese room, done properly and quietly. Thirteen floors up, 665°F is the steakhouse: premium cuts and sustainable seafood out of a Pira oven, with Singapore spread out underneath. And the Sunroom runs through the day with refreshments that come with the room, which is the kind of thing that stops you buying a coffee out of boredom.

An open doorway with SUNROOM inlaid in the floor, a counter visible beyond
The Sunroom. Refreshments through the day, included, which is a genuinely useful thing in this heat.
A bright room with mustard and olive chairs, a buffet counter and tall windows
Inside, in the hour before dinner. The mustard is the thread that runs through the whole hotel.
A table set for two with glasses and linen, beside a window onto the towers
A table by the glass. Every public room here is arranged around the same decision.

Mr Stork

The thirty-ninth floor is the roof, and it is the reason people who do not stay here still come. Mr Stork is open air, planted thickly enough that it reads as a garden, never as a terrace, and the view goes all the way round. Set into the planting there are ten teepees in timber and fabric, each one private. You sit inside one with a drink, surrounded by vegetation, nine floors above the steakhouse and thirty-nine above the street.

MR STORK inlaid in brass letters across a pale stone floor between lift doors
The name in the floor as the lift opens. The hotel makes you walk the last few metres.
An interior bar with a cluster of globe lights over tables, the city visible through the glass
The indoor half of the bar, for when the sky opens, which in Singapore it does.
A long timber communal table laid with glasses and candles, the lit skyline behind it
The long table at the edge. Book it for a group, or take two seats at the end of it.
A cup of tea and a glass on a marble table beside a welcome card and a small plant
Tea by the pool with the welcome card, which carries the room number written by hand.
Loungers under a furled parasol at the edge of the infinity pool, the skyline beyond
The loungers on the pool deck. In the afternoon there is more shade here than the photograph suggests.
A corner table with brown leather chairs under a glass roof, the city outside
A corner at the top of the building, laid for dinner before the light goes.

The evening

The infinity pool lit from within at night, the towers of Singapore standing behind it
The pool after dark, which is when the temperature finally makes sense and when it empties out.

I ate in the building both evenings, and that is not something I usually recommend in a city this good at eating. Here it works, because the four rooms are different enough from one another that staying in becomes a decision you make on purpose.

A bottle of Billecart-Salmon on a marble table with a flute and a cocktail beside it
Billecart on the table, which is how an evening at the top of this building tends to start.
A round of tuna tartare on avocado on a white plate, with bread and a flute beside it
Tartare, plated tight and dressed lightly. The kitchen does not overwork this kind of thing.
A sesame burger cut through, with fries on the side on a white plate
The burger, cut. Ordinary in principle and not in execution, which is the test for a hotel kitchen.
A breakfast table from above with pastries, papaya, yoghurt and coffee on patterned plates
Breakfast, from above. The patterned china is used right through the hotel and never matches by accident.
A breakfast room with mustard chairs, a long counter and glass-fronted cabinets
The room in the morning. The counter restocks constantly and the kitchen cooks behind it.
An omelette with bacon, olives, spinach and potatoes on a yellow-rimmed plate
An omelette made to order. Breakfast comes with the rate on both programmes.
The honeycomb facade lit from inside at night, the panels catching the light
The facade at night, from the roof terrace. The honeycomb holds the light in its folds.
An atrium with stepped balconies lit in bands, seen looking down
Looking down the atrium. The building is as interesting inside as it is from the street.
A round planted installation on a stone base in front of a tall woven hanging
The piece in the arrival hall, under a hanging that quotes the textiles of the quarter outside.

Is it worth it

Yes, and for a particular traveller. This is a hotel for somebody who wants to be in Singapore, never merely above it, which sounds contradictory for a building that starts on the twenty-fifth floor. It works because of where the towers stand: the old quarters are at your feet, the bay is in your window, and the design keeps reminding you which city you are in.

If what you want is a colonial address with a long verandah, this is not that, and the Raffles end of town does it better. If you want the Singapore of the last ten years, with the food of the old one taken seriously thirty floors up, this is the right building.

The pool at night with a full moon over the buildings beyond the loungers
The moon over the deck, around eight. Nobody else was up here.
The lit towers of central Singapore seen at night from high up, traffic moving below
The view from the room on the last night, which is the one photograph I would keep.

Where it is

5 Fraser Street, in the DUO Towers, with Kampong Glam and Little India at the foot of the building and Bugis MRT a short walk away. Booked through Classic Travel, where this house is unusual in carrying two preferred-partner programmes at once, Virtuoso and Hyatt Privé. The Hyatt Privé rate brings breakfast for two every morning, a credit to spend in the house, the early arrival and late departure when the day allows it, priority for an upgrade when one is free at check-in, and a welcome amenity of the hotel's own choosing. The credit is counted once per stay and per room, and the house keeps it for what it sells itself, so it will not come off the room rate or the tax. The Virtuoso rate is shaped differently. Which of the two serves you better depends on your dates and the room you want, so tell me when you are going and I will put them side by side before you book.

Before you book

The questions people send me about Andaz Singapore.

Where exactly is the hotel, and what is it inside?
5 Fraser Street, in the DUO Towers, between Kampong Glam and Bugis. The towers are the ones with the honeycomb facade, and the hotel occupies the upper floors, so there is no ground-floor lobby in the usual sense. You arrive, you go up, and everything from the pool to the rooftop bar sits between the twenty-fifth and thirty-ninth floors. Kampong Glam and Little India start at the foot of the building, and the Bugis MRT is a short walk.
Who designed it, and does that matter to the stay?
André Fu, and yes. The rooms are built on mustard tones, timber and textures that quote the old shophouses of the surrounding neighbourhoods, so a very tall modern building ends up feeling local. The towers themselves are Ole Scheeren's. The combination is what makes this different from a generic city tower with a view.
What is the room like?
I had a King with the shower, thirty-eight square metres, with floor-to-ceiling glass and a view over the city. A plush bed, a rain shower in a bathroom lined in stone, a fifty-inch screen with Chromecast, a Nespresso machine, an electric kettle and TWG tea. Robes and slippers, individual climate control and a safe. The free minibar sits in the room with snacks and soft drinks and gets refilled. Three hundred and forty-two rooms in total, of which twenty-six are suites.
Which restaurants are in the building?
Four, and they are stacked through the building, one floor at a time. Alley on 25 is the heart of it, a hawker centre reimagined with open kitchens working local and international food. 5 ON 25 is the refined Cantonese room. 665°F sits on the thirty-eighth floor and is a steakhouse, premium cuts and sustainable seafood cooked in a Pira oven, with the city underneath you. Mr Stork is the rooftop bar on the thirty-ninth, open air, three hundred and sixty degrees, with the teepees.
Is it a good base for seeing Singapore?
Very good, and for a particular reason. The hotel stands where the old neighbourhoods are, so you step out into Kampong Glam and Little India, which are the parts of the city worth walking, and no business district stands between you and them. Marina Bay and the centre are a few minutes away. You get the old city at the door and the new one in the window.
It carries two programmes. Which one should I book?
Andaz Singapore sits on Classic Travel under both Virtuoso and Hyatt Privé, which very few houses do. The Hyatt Privé rate carries full breakfast for two, a property credit to spend in the house, early check-in and late check-out when the day allows, priority for a complimentary upgrade when one is free at arrival, a welcome amenity the hotel chooses itself, and wifi. Two things about that credit are worth knowing before you plan around it. It is counted per stay and per room, so a longer stay does not multiply it, and it cannot be put against the room rate, the tax, the service, a resort fee or an outlet inside the building that somebody else runs. The Virtuoso rate sits beside it and is shaped differently. Tell me your dates and the room you want, and I will put the two in front of you with the figures, then you choose.

Something else you want to know? Write to me and I will answer it here.

A gym with treadmills, bikes and weight balls in front of a glass wall Rolled towels and bottles of water on glass shelves in a timber recess Two vases of densely packed yellow carnations against a pale wall An atrium seen from above, its balconies stepping down in bands of light The 665°F menu laid on a marble counter beside a brass globe and a red weight A corridor with MR STORK inlaid in brass across the stone floor, open doors at the end

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