Jigger & Pony

A Lobby Bar That Became a Benchmark

The hotel lobby is not, historically, where cocktail culture earns its credibility. In most cities, lobby bars exist to serve convenience rather than craft. Tanjong Pagar's cocktail scene has produced a notable exception. Jigger & Pony operates from the Amara Hotel at 165 Tanjong Pagar Road, and the address — a full-service hotel lobby rather than a converted shophouse — does nothing to dilute what has become one of the most consistently recognised bar programs in Asia. The space reads as considered rather than corporate, the kind of room that signals intention before a single drink arrives.

Singapore's cocktail scene has developed along two broad tracks over the past decade: high-concept bar-as-theatre, where the production frequently overshadows the liquid, and a smaller cohort focused on technical depth and service culture as the primary offering. Jigger & Pony belongs firmly to the second group. Its longevity on global ranking lists , the bar has appeared in the World's 50 Best Bars every year since 2019, and in Asia's 50 Best Bars continuously since 2016 , reflects something that spectacle alone cannot sustain. Consistency at this level, across nearly a decade of external assessment, points to a program with genuine structural depth.

The Awards Record in Context

Rankings in the cocktail world should be read with some scepticism: peer-vote systems reward visibility as much as quality, and a bar's position in any given year reflects a specific voter cohort's priorities. With that caveat stated, Jigger & Pony's trajectory is worth examining carefully. The bar entered Asia's 50 Best at #21 in 2017, climbed to #8 in 2016's inaugural list, and has spent four consecutive years (2020 through 2023) ranked between #1 and #2 in Asia. Its 2025 position of #3 in Asia and #5 globally on the World's 50 Best Bars, alongside a #5 ranking from Top 500 Bars in the same year, places it in a peer set that includes very few Asian bars. For regional context, Singapore bars that register at this level of sustained global recognition include 28 HongKong Street and Analogue, both of which operate with their own distinct technical identities. Atlas, meanwhile, occupies a different niche entirely , gin library and Art Deco grandeur rather than cocktail-forward programming. What distinguishes Jigger & Pony within this local peer group is the breadth of its international ranking history rather than a single breakout year.

The Menuzine Format and What It Signals

In most cocktail bars, the menu is a functional document: names, ingredients, prices. A small number of internationally recognised programs have moved toward menu-as-editorial, treating the annual release as a creative statement in its own right. Jigger & Pony's 'menuzine' format , a printed, magazine-style publication released annually , has become a collector's item among regular patrons, which says something useful about the bar's relationship with its audience. The current edition, titled Embrace, runs to 68 pages and is organised into thematic sections that frame the style of drinks within each category.

The Embrace Change section positions drinks around the idea that subtle shifts in familiar ingredients produce richer results. One example from the available record is the Red Revival, which brings together house-roasted coffee, tequila, beetroot and strawberry into a layered, smoky structure. The Embrace Tradition section works the opposite angle, pulling from the established canon of global cocktail culture and updating the presentation rather than the underlying logic. The bar's interpretation of the Paloma uses aged, lightly smoky tequila alongside a house-made guava and pink grapefruit soda, served with a peeled grapefruit wedge that guests are meant to squeeze at the table. The interactivity is minimal but deliberate: it gives the drinker a sense of participation without turning service into performance.

The menuzine approach also functions as a statement about the bar's self-conception. Bars that invest in editorial-quality printed materials are signalling permanence , they are not chasing the next trend cycle. This aligns with the broader trajectory of the program, which has been built around hospitality fundamentals rather than novelty, and which has maintained its peer group ranking across multiple cycles of global cocktail fashion.

Tanjong Pagar as a Bar Neighbourhood

Move from Amoy Street to Tanjong Pagar in 2018 placed Jigger & Pony inside one of Singapore's more concentrated eating and drinking corridors. Tanjong Pagar runs from the edge of the CBD southward toward Keong Saik Road, with a density of restaurants, wine bars and cocktail programs that makes it a logical base for an evening rather than a single-stop destination. The neighbourhood's character is mixed in useful ways: heritage shophouses converted into dining rooms sit alongside newer hotel F&B; operations, and the foot traffic after business hours skews toward a professional crowd rather than tourists following a guidebook circuit. For a bar that has built its reputation on warm, direct hospitality rather than exclusivity signalling, the neighbourhood fit is reasonable. The Amara Hotel lobby setting adds a layer of accessibility that a standalone shophouse would not provide , there is no door to find, no buzzer to press.

Other bars in the broader area worth mapping include Anti:Dote at the Fairmont and the programs along Keong Saik. For those planning a broader Singapore bar evening, our full Singapore bars guide covers the city's recognised programs with neighbourhood-level context. The Singapore restaurants guide, hotels guide, wineries guide and experiences guide round out the city coverage for those planning a longer stay.

Planning a Visit: What to Know Before You Go

Jigger & Pony operates from the Amara Hotel lobby at 165 Tanjong Pagar Road, which is within walking distance of Tanjong Pagar MRT on the East-West Line. The hotel lobby setting means walk-in access is generally possible, though a bar ranked in the global leading five will fill quickly on weekend evenings and during peak hospitality seasons. Visiting on a weekday, particularly earlier in the evening, gives you the leading chance of a seat without advance planning. The bar's Google rating sits at 4.7 across more than 1,500 reviews, which for a venue at this price point and recognition level indicates consistent execution across a broad visitor base rather than a polarising program that wins converts and critics in equal measure.

Price range data is not available in the current record, but comparable programs ranked at this tier in Singapore typically sit in the SGD 22–32 range per cocktail. The menuzine format means the drink list changes annually, so checking current availability before a visit is worth doing rather than arriving with a fixed list in mind.

For international visitors building a bar-focused itinerary, Jigger & Pony sits alongside other globally ranked programs worth mapping: Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu, Jewel of the South in New Orleans and Julep in Houston each represent the equivalent tier in their respective markets , programs where the awards record reflects a sustained commitment to craft rather than a single viral moment.