Making most of Raffles

Singapore’s grand dame of hospitality as welcoming as always

Travelling Tales with Ann Rickard

SOME places are so legendary they take on an almost mythical reputation. Raffles in Singapore is such a place.

Sipping a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar at Raffles is so Somerset Maughan you have to pinch yourself to ensure you are indeed there and not in the middle of your most outrageous travel fantasy.

Since its beginning in 1887, this grand dame of hospitality and colonial splendour has welcomed royalty, world leaders, legendary movie stars and a host of literati.

Recently it welcomed me.

The only dilemma in this regal place is where to eat and drink in its 15 restaurants and bars.

Taking up an entire city block, its imposing size is the first surprise.

I’d imagined it to be a small, white colonial building, and it did begin life as such before the addition of wings, a veranda, a ballroom, a bar and a magnificent billiard room – all surrounded by lush gardens.

To be greeted by turbaned doormen, resplendent in long, red and gold-trimmed white jackets, starts the reality of the fantasy.

Walk into the Victorian-era, multi-tiered lobby with its columns, pendant lighting and extravagant floral displays and you feel like Elizabeth Taylor, or perhaps Prince William ... why not Bill Clinton or Ernest Hemmingway? They’ve all put their heads down on the soft pillows at this hotel.

Linger over a sumptuous buffet lunch of international fare while sipping a glass of Pol Roger in the magnificent Bar and Billiard Room and you’ll easily believe the legend of the tiger shot under the antique billiard table.

It seems the doomed animal escaped from a nearby circus in 1902 and made an ill-fated dash for the Bar and Billiard Room where it was greeted with a loaded gun. Fortunately, you are more likely to be greeted with a Singapore Sling.

The only dilemma in this regal place is where to eat and drink in its 15 restaurants and bars, or if you can crook your little finger at just the right angle at high tea, or how much to splurge in the luxury shops in the Raffles Arcade.

Such quandaries. You’ll just have to fit in as much as you can.