Robertson Quay on a Friday evening has a particular energy. The kind that arrives just before the weekend starts, when the river catches the last of the light, and people who have loosened their ties slightly are deciding whether one more drink is a good idea. The Warehouse Hotel sits at the end of all of that, a low brick building that doesn’t announce itself so much as wait for you to notice it. Built in 1895 as a spice godown, it has been, in no particular order, a place of commerce, a place of considerable vice, and in its 1980s incarnation as Singapore’s largest disco, a place of extremely good times. That it is now a 37-room boutique hotel feels less like a transformation and more like the conclusion of a historic building whose past lives have seen it all.
I was invited to stay and experience those current and former lives for myself. The most recent incarnation of the space pays homage to its history and weaves the story of 320 Havelock Road through the design, the rooms, the menus, and the overall experience. If you love boutique hotels or love intentional spaces that lean into their history without being cliche, this is a hotel for you.
The Hotel
The Warehouse Hotel opened in January 2017 under the Lo & Behold Group, with interiors by Asylum and architecture by Zarch Collaboratives. It sits within the Design Hotels portfolio and won AHEAD Asia’s Hotel of the Year in 2018, the kind of credential that tends to either impress people or make them deeply suspicious. In this case, it’s impressive and well deserved. The lobby is double-height, with black steel trusses, exposed brick, and a pulley-inspired lighting installation that references the building’s industrial past without tipping into theme park territory. It is, in the particular vocabulary of boutique hotel design, extremely good. You arrive, collect a welcome drink token, and are encouraged to find your feet, which is exactly the right approach for a building that rewards a little exploration.
The Room
The River View Room is spacious in the way that good hotel rooms are spacious. Not vast, but considered, with nothing in the wrong place. The air conditioning is exceptional, which in Singapore is not a small thing. The walk-in shower is generous, the bath is the kind you actually use, and a Bang & Olufsen speaker on the nightstand suggests that the space is yours to make your own without stating it explicitly. The minibar is divided into three sections—Gluttony, Vanity, and Lust—a classification system that tells you everything about The Warehouse Hotel’s sense of humour. Gluttony covers local snacks. Vanity covers personal care. Lust covers, among other things, a curated selection from local brand Hedonist: personal lubrication, adult massage devices, and some games to play after dark. Guests who consider the in-room provisions insufficient can request a more comprehensive selection from reception—rose gold handcuffs, a leather flog, a silk blindfold, and cards I will describe only as instructional. But this isn’t a hotel with prices by the hour. It’s a conscious nod to the space’s history, and intended to let guests explore that at their own pace, should they desire. The hotel offers 37 rooms in total, and no two are identical. The ‘goldfish room’, local legend among those who know it, has no windows and a certain couple’s retreat energy. The River View Suite, Loft, and Mezzanine rooms reach upward with improbable ceiling heights, the latter featuring local artwork. The rooftop pool, glass-sided and perched above Robertson Quay, is the kind of elevated oasis you genuinely would not expect to find up there. The perfect way to shed the week as the sun goes down before you head to the bar for a signature cocktail.
The Bar
The Lobby Bar’s cocktail menu is built on a timeline. Each signature drink corresponds to a year, and each year to a chapter in Singapore’s history that doubles as a chapter in the building’s. The 1890 Reverse Trade arrives in the spice trade era: a martini inverted and rebuilt with Chiu Long Gin, Cocchi Americano, Shaoxing Wine, and Fino Sherry. The Chiu Long Gin is distilled in-house, named after Chiu Long Lo, which translates as Spirit Distillery Street, and built on spice-forward botanicals drawn from the same trade routes the building once served. Drinking it in the lobby of a former godown is not subtle. It is, however, very good. The 1930 entry is The 36 Oaths, named for the initiation rites of the secret societies that once operated in these warehouses: Motel Mezcal and the house Amaro, two ingredients, maximum strength, no further explanation offered or required. It is precisely what you want after a long week. Then there is the 1980 Pink Pepper Club, named for the disco era that once made this building Singapore’s loudest address. High West Rye Whiskey, black garlic, coffee, coconut foam, and pink peppercorn. I tried it. I finished it. I am still deciding how I feel about it, which may be the highest compliment you can pay a cocktail.
The Food
The bar bites menu is short, locally inflected, and significantly more considered than bar snacks you’ll come across in other boutique hotels. The Gobi 65, cauliflower marinated with spices and curry leaves, was the best thing I ate all evening, which surprised me and probably should not have. The Ayam Percik Skewer arrives glazed in a Kelantan-style spice percik sauce, the regional specificity earning its place both on the menu and on the palate. The Crispy Roast Pork Belly, tossed with smoked paprika, house-blend five spices, and garlic aioli, is salty and fatty in the way that makes you want another cocktail, which is definitely for the best. And to shake off any haze from the cocktails the night before, breakfast the following morning at Po is à la carte free flow rather than typical buffet-style. It’s a choice that reflects well on the hotel’s general instinct not to do things the lazy way. The Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, ordered with extra salmon on the side, was exactly what a good hotel breakfast should be.
The Verdict
The Warehouse Hotel does the thing that heritage hotels often claim and rarely manage: it earns its history rather than merely displaying it. The building has been through enough—spice trade, opium, secret societies, Singapore’s best disco, years of dereliction, reinvention—that no amount of exposed brick and considered lighting could fully contain it. The history lives in the gin, the cocktail names, the 1895 fabric of the walls, not in a laminated timeline in a corridor. It is the kind of place that works equally well for a weekend getaway, an adult staycation, a creative who needs a room that thinks harder than a standard hotel, or for an after-work drink that deserves more than an off-brand two-for-one deal. And granted, hotel stays aren’t a weekly occurrence in most people’s lives, but the lobby bar is genuinely underrated as an end-of-week destination. The drinks are excellent, the lounge is comfortable, and the building is telling a story in the background. You won’t be able to put it down.
Discover The Warehouse Hotel at 320 Havelock Road.
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