There’s a particular kind of skepticism I bring to any bar that promises a concept.
Concept usually means the drinks matter less than the story, that you’re paying for a mood board rather than something you’d actually want to drink twice. So when I heard The Elephant Room Singapore builds every cocktail around a story from Little India, I went in ready to be unconvinced.
Here’s the thing. It mostly won me over, and not for the reasons I expected.
First Impressions at The Elephant Room: A New Bar Inspired by Indian Culture
The Elephant Room sits at 33 Tanjong Pagar Road, tucked into a stretch of the city that already has too many places competing for your evening. From the outside it doesn’t shout. You could walk past it if you weren’t looking.
Step inside, though, and the room does something quietly clever. It reaches for Little India without turning it into a costume. There’s warm wood, rich vermillion accents, raw terracotta flooring underfoot, and the ingredients themselves put on display like small artifacts. Distillates, ferments, jellies, sitting there as if to say the story starts before you’ve ordered anything.
I appreciated the restraint. It would have been easy to make this a theme bar, all spice-market kitsch and heavy-handed references. Instead it feels considered, warm rather than performative. The newer Tanjong Pagar space seats around 45, nearly double its old home, with counter spots and cosy booths.
That said, this is still an intimate room. The noise stays conversational, which suits it, though I’d guess a Friday night pushes that comfortably higher. It’s a place to talk, not to shout over. If you want a big, sprawling table for eight, this isn’t built for you, and it isn’t pretending to be.
What I Ordered: Exploring Flavours Through The Elephant Room’s Audacious Cocktails and Cuisine
The menu here needs reading, and I mean that as both a compliment and a warning. You don’t glance and point. You sit with it, because the drinks are dishes translated into glasses, and skimming means missing the whole point.
Chicken Biryani Cocktail
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is the one everyone talks about, and I understand why. On paper it sounds like a dare. Homemade biryani tincture, basmati makgeolli, ghee sake, shaved cured masala egg, and papadum. It reads like someone deconstructed a Sunday lunch and poured it into a glass.
What lands is the ambition. You can taste the effort, the layering, the genuine attempt to carry biryani’s warmth and spice into liquid form. The savoury notes are there, the ghee lending a soft richness, the masala egg adding that unmistakable familiarity.
My honest reservation is that it could push harder. For a drink built on biryani, one of the boldest, most fragrant dishes there is, I wanted more punch, a fuller hit of spice that stayed longer. It impresses conceptually more than it grabs you by the collar. Still, I’d order it again, if only because there’s nothing else quite like it in the city. It’s a drink that respects the dish it came from.
Spiced Crab Rasam
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is where the bar stops being clever and starts being genuinely interesting.
Rasam is broth, savoury and spiced and deeply comforting, and turning that into a cocktail is a real gamble. It leans umami, savoury, almost soup-like rather than anything sweet or citrusy. If you walked in expecting a negroni or a sour, this will short-circuit your expectations entirely.
I liked it more than the biryani, honestly. There’s a confidence to it, a willingness to be unapologetically savoury without softening the edges for a nervous crowd. This is the drink I’d hand a skeptical friend, the one who thinks they’ve tasted everything. It’s not for everyone, and it shouldn’t be. That’s rather the point.
The Buffalo Road Cocktail: A Pink Guava Infused Gin
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Buffalo Road cocktail is a standout creation at The Elephant Room, featuring pink guava-infused gin that offers a vibrant and fruity base. This is expertly balanced with the earthy, grassy notes of vetiver and a splash of tonic, resulting in a herbaceous and refreshing drink. The interplay of sweet guava and the subtle anise-like qualities of vetiver makes for a complex yet approachable cocktail. It’s a perfect choice for those looking to experience the glitzy rooftop perched atop the cultural richness of Little India through a glass, delivering a taste that is both innovative and deeply rooted in local inspiration.
Tamarind Curry Prawns and Other Dishes
The kitchen doles out four dishes to complement the drinking experience so you don’t end up with an empty stomach. There’s the classic street snack Desker Road, pani puri filled with moringa avail and coconut crumble, as well as tamarind curry prawns—grilled tiger prawns served in a tangy tamarind curry you can mop up with a piece of flatbread.
The Indian fried chicken burger is proper, spiced and hearty, closer to a real meal than a token bite. It sits alongside heartier options like spiced Kerala beef and spice-crusted cauliflower, all built to extend the Little India story rather than just soak up alcohol.
The Elephant Room Singapore's Cocktail Menu: Drinks Inspired by Little India’s Iconic Sites
The bar’s signature tipple and the rest of the seven drinks on the freshman menu are audaciously bold and incredibly layered, drawing inspiration from the essence of Little India’s vibrant culture. Each cocktail tells a hidden story, with ingredients sourced fresh from Tekka Market and the surrounding wet market, reflecting the soul of the neighbourhood.
The Tekka cocktail blends Old Monk rum with lacto fermented bananas and coconut, resting atop a delicate sliver of dehydrated banana skin dotted with lime cream and chicken 65-spiced caramel. It captures the food centre’s spirit and is a tribute to the residents who count on this hub for nourishment.
The legendary Beeda Man from Rowell Road, a digestif featuring sour mango rum modulated with peppery, citrusy, and anise-y caraway, is served alongside a sweet betel leaf treat, a nod to the bar upstairs and its Indian food heritage.
(These cocktails are honestly a first time for me as well, makes me want to pull out that cocktail and bar guide I made for situations like this just to remind myself what to do LOL.)
Service and Overall Experience: The Elephant Room’s Head Bartender Brings New Inspiration
This is where The Elephant Room separates itself, and it’s the part I keep turning over.
The service isn’t just fast pours and cleared glasses. It’s storytelling. The former head bartender behind Smoke & Mirrors, now leading The Elephant Room, walks you through why a drink tastes the way it does, where the ingredient came from, what corner of Little India inspired it.
There’s a spice corner where you can see, smell, and touch the ingredients that end up in your glass, and it does something a menu alone can’t. It turns a drink into an explanation.
I’ll be honest about my instinct here. Normally this kind of thing makes me wary, because storytelling in bars often means padding out a thin concept with narration. Here it earns its place. The drinks genuinely are cultural references, not decoration, so the explanation feels necessary rather than performed.
For a lot of first-timers, this is apparently their first encounter with Indian culture in this particular format, and the hospitality is how that door opens. When it works, and it mostly does, you leave understanding something you didn’t walk in with. That’s rarer than it should be.
The pacing suits the room. Nobody rushes you, but you’re not left stranded either. It reads as a bar that takes its own idea seriously without taking itself too seriously, which is a harder balance than most places manage.
Things to Know Before You Go to The Elephant Room Singapore
A few practical notes before you make the trip.
Address: 33 Tanjong Pagar Road, #01-02, Singapore 088456.
Nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar MRT, an easy walk, with the broader Chinatown and Outram dining belt nearby. Ride-hail is the smarter call if you’re drinking.
Hours: Sunday to Thursday, 6pm to 12am. Friday and Saturday, 6pm to 2am.
Happy Hour: 6pm to 7:30pm, which is also the calmest window to actually talk to your bartender.
Spend: Roughly $40 to $60 per person for a couple of cocktails and light bites. More if you order several drinks or work through the food menu.
Reservations: Walk-ins are welcome, but book ahead for peak hours. There’s a “Book a Ritual” option and WhatsApp booking if you want to plan properly.
Parking: Possible in the Tanjong Pagar area, though public transport or ride-hail makes far more sense given the drinks.
If you want the quieter, more conversational version of this place, aim for a Tuesday to Thursday early evening, or a Sunday. Friday and Saturday nights bring the post-dinner crowd, and the intimacy tightens fast.
Daniel's Verdict on The Elephant Room Singapore
Price Range: $$
Daniel’s Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is a bar built on an idea, and unlike most concept bars, the idea holds. It’s original, culturally grounded, and confident enough to serve you a savoury broth in a cocktail glass without apology. It won’t be for everyone, and it isn’t trying to be. That’s the whole strength of it.
Perfect For: Adventurous cocktail drinkers, date nights, small groups, and anyone curious about tasting Little India through something other than a meal.
Skip It If: You want a full dinner, prefer classic sweet or spirit-forward cocktails, dislike savoury and spiced flavours, or you’re after a loud party bar with a big group.
SENDs Tip: Come during happy hour, 6pm to 7:30pm, before the small crowd gathers, and actually read the menu instead of skimming. Order the Spiced Crab Rasam over the safer options, and let the former head bartender walk you through the story. The drinks make far more sense once you understand where they came from.
Before You Decide: Reflecting on The Elephant Room Singapore and Its Indian Culture Inspiration
I left The Elephant Room thinking less about any single drink and more about the intent behind them.
The biryani cocktail could have been bolder. The rasam surprised me. But what stays with me is the sense of a bar that actually cares about the culture it’s drawing from, that treats Little India as a story worth telling properly rather than a flavour to borrow and discard.
Whether that’s your kind of evening depends entirely on what you want from a night out. If you like drinks that make you think, that carry a memory of a place and a people, you’ll find plenty here to sit with. If you just want something cold and familiar in your hand, there are easier bars a few doors down.
I’d go back. For the right mood, with someone curious enough to order the strange thing and ask why it tastes the way it does.
If this was useful, why not get absolutely hammered and read more bars to try in Singapore over at Social Eats ‘N’ Drinks. We’re always out somewhere, paying attention, so you can decide what’s worth your time.
