Singapore bling
Prepare to be wowed at the Fullerton Bay Hotel.
Scotsman Robert Fullerton was a man who prided himself on his foresight. New late 18th-century colonies needed leadership and he saw his niche, eventually becoming the first Governor of the Straits Settlements, and establishing municipal order throughout the Malay Peninsula.
Fullerton did not foresee, though, that he would die just one year after a naval fort, named in his honour, was built on the Singapore foreshore in 1829. He could never have dreamed, either, that the name Fullerton would ultimately be attached to many of the modern city’s most prestigious and beautiful buildings.
Possibly most guests of the Fullerton Bay Hotel, opened in 2010, are blissfully unaware of all this. They are too awed by the discreet entrance, the polished welcome and swift service as bags are wafted from limo transfer to one of the hotel’s 100 rooms or suites.
Inside, marble floors reflect old and new. On the left is the revitalised 1930’s Clifford Pier, but we turn right to check in, inhaling the hotel’s bespoke fragrance.
And then, our room. It’s pinch-yourself time as we glimpse a coffee-maker, the bathtub TV, but are drawn to the balcony – over water on the edge of Marina Bay, home to the city’s showpony tourist attractions: the Singapore Flyer, Botanical Gardens, the weirdly wiry Supertrees, and of course the unusually shaped Marina Bay Sands. After dinner, we return to enjoy the piercing beams of MBS’s laser show, strobing the tropical sky, reflecting in the bay.
To view the Fullerton collection, it is best to take a complimentary guided heritage tour and see for yourself: The Fullerton Hotel opened in 2001 on the site of the former fort; the
reinvented Fullerton Waterboat House, One Fullerton, Customs House, The Fullerton Bay Hotel and Clifford Pier, complete the collection. In real estate terms it is a priceless coronet of properties on Singapore’s premier piece of waterfront.
The hotel already has a chic brasserie, the Clifford, with its 10-metre high windows, but we were itching to experience Clifford Pier, which opened last May.
I’ll spare you the superlatives. Once you see the colonial setting with its lofty white ceiling and curved trusses reflected in the marble floor, creating an illusion of a huge magical tunnel that finishes at the bay, you’ll supply your own.
Our tasting menu, served on handmade pottery plates, trickles out a seemingly endless stream of chic versions of Singaporean hawker dishes. Kueh pie tee, crispy thimbleshaped filled pastries, mutton soup spiced for local palates, rendang and, best of all, “two generations of rickshaw noodles” – Hokkien noodles in a pork broth and paired with succulent pork belly and soft-boiled egg.
Tradition meets 21st century here, so there’s also an upmarket combo of glass noodles with sea urchin, salted eggs and salmon roe bathed in a lime truffle sauce and, more familiar, lobster in a toasted roll served with a paper cone of chips and tomato sauce. Dessert? What else but a take on the street-side favourite – green pandan ice cream served in marbled bread?
As we checkout, we see him beside the hotel. Not Fullerton, but a reproduction of Rodin’s statue, The Thinker.
Yes, that sums up this place. It’s the thinking person’s hotel; created by minds that have explored and provided every possible comfort; for those who know what they desire in a hotel.
Surely somewhere, Governor Fullerton, the original instigator of detail and order in Singapore, is nodding his approval.
Air Niugini flies from Port Moresby to Singapore five days a week. See airniugini.com.pg.