2023 January Our 9 Days in Singapore at the Four Seasons

We were very excited to return to Singapore after twenty years! It didn't disappoint! We were met at Changi and brought to the Four Seasons by an outside service (unfortunately no House Car). Our check-in with Maggie was easy and she brought us to our room. She did give us misinformation when we asked if the hotel had a Jacuzzi. She said “no.” We later discovered the hotel’s Jacuzzi on our own. Our Elite upgrade was to a One Bedroom Suite (at about US$500 a night). It was 91 sq m and well-laid out. We had tables for desks brought in because there wasn’t even one. Upon entering, the second bathroom (which we love) was in the entry hall. There was no “master” light switch on the entry wall. Instead, there was a master switch for the living room near the door to the bedroom and another master switch near the bed for the bedroom. These were indications of a very old hotel that had not undergone a thorough renovation (Actually, Dimitri thought that a completely new Four Seasons should be built in Singapore.)

Our living room was large, with a sofa and coffee table (there were beautiful fresh flowers on it) and a large mini-bar station with a Lavazza coffee machine. The TV was clunky to use and offered no guide to the programs on the channels. It did have a channel with radio stations and it played our favorite Singapore Symphony 924 (and there was one speaker in the main bathroom to play the music there).  Some of the electrical outlets needed adapters, while others were universal. There were no electrical outlets in the bathrooms for our electric toothbrush/ the hairdryer (just for razors). The bedroom had space for the second laptop table and had a large divan, as well. We needed to have the room customized and the staff was very helpful in doing that. Vanatha from Housekeeping was attentive as was the supervisor, Kent. In addition to lovely (refreshed) flowers, we were brought fruit, including two really good mangos.

Our breakfast was included in our Elite benefits and the main breakfast buffet was truly extensive. In addition, we could also order anything we wanted. We met and talked to the chefs and that was fun. The Executive Pastry Chef, Audrey Yee, would come in the morning to chat with us. After we were given access to the Executive Club (that’s another story), Audrey would visit Audre there too. The selections at the buffet in the Executive Club were very good and we enjoyed eating outside by the pool where it was warm and no screaming children. Radhiwan would take good care of us. Chef Amanda would take our orders--oatmeal (made as we specified with milk) and French toast made with thick sliced brioche bread soaked for an hour (to make the center like pudding and the outside crisp). Then we found yet another area for breakfast: the bar had breakfast offerings and we could sit on the patio outside and bring food from the main breakfast buffet. 

When we were having breakfast outside of the Executive Club we spied the outdoor Jacuzzi. It looked great but the temperature on the outdoor thermometer announced that was too cold so we asked for it to be raised. It was indeed raised but it then got too hot. We wanted engineering to find our sweet spot of 38.5° C. Unfortunately they never did while we were in Singapore. We used the Jacuzzi anyway but getting in and out was really dangerous. There were no stairs, just a ginormous step-down. We would sit by the side (an acrobatic effort at our age) and slide down the side to the first landing and then ease in the second ginormous step-down to the bottom. The sides of the Jacuzzi sloped inward and were not easy to navigate getting in.

On our first night in Singapore, we were invited by Catherine Scown, VP of Hotel Sales and Marketing Asia Pacific for the Four Seasons, to the Elite dinner with the 2-Michelin starred Chef Daniel Calvert from Sezanne Tokyo cooking. The meal was stupendous and we enjoyed it very much. The room was festooned in orchids (I mean really festooned) and was gorgeous.  Attending were FS executives and around 30 people who were favored guests (rather than owners of residences like us). There were 7 courses, each served with aplomb. Although we weren’t drinking, the guests seemed very happy with the wine. CEO of Vega Sicilia, Pavlo explained each of the wines but he was very hard to hear, did not speak English clearly, and had no personality whatsoever. Our seatmates were entertaining and we were across from Peter Draminsky, Regional VP and GM of the Four Seasons Singapore. That was really great and entertaining. We won’t list the dishes but we’ll say that the meal started with 3 small offerings of which one was the standout: “Kristal” caviar with avocado and sudachi (a Japanese lime) was a real treat. We were served malted barley sourdough that Dimitri loved (served with Brittany butter). The next course was an oyster “soup” with champagne that was really good. The Shanghai Hairy Crab marinated in yellow wine from Jura was spectacular: it was a small tart of crab that was the epitome of crab taste—in an easy-to-eat form. The salade gourmande with tasteless black truffles was followed by white truffles from Alba with aged parmesan. The smell of the white truffles was perfect and the taste was pretty good. The main course was venison from NZ with a sweet potato purée enveloped in a thin skin of lard. The sauce that was served with the venison was outstanding: it was made with bottles and bottles of Château d'Yquem reduced to perfection. Audre didn’t eat the venison but managed to inhale the small pitcher of the sauce. Then the desserts began: a sorbet of Hokkaido roses and sauternes wine followed by strawberries from Fukuoka with burrata cheese (like cream). That was the end of the formal dining and Chef Daniel Calvert came to talk to us and was delightful. He is indeed an enfant terrible at 30-something! We were delighted to be included!

For us, and for Audre in particular, staying at a Four Seasons is a treat. She really loves the attention she gets. The Four Seasons Singapore delivered perfectly in that respect.  We usually use the gyms at hotels but not this time. Dimitri’s left knee had been giving him problems, so much so he didn’t want to even walk much, let alone use the gym. There were other problems for us. The gym was freezing cold and even doing aerobic exercise in there we would have been ice cubes. The second excuse (or third, but who’s counting), was that the machines were new to us and were multi-functional and we didn’t want to learn the routines. There was no attendant (that we saw) like there had been at the Four Seasons Bangkok (who became Audre’s personal trainer when we stayed there in 2021).

So we didn’t do much walking in Singapore but we did do a lot of wonderful eating. Have a look at our Singapore Restaurant Reviews by ALEDM and try to enjoy the meals as much as we did. Dimitri had identified the Michelin-starred restaurants that he wanted and Muzaffar, the Four Seasons Concierge, got us reservations. The most difficult one (and the most disappointing one) was Waku Ghin where Audre had to actually beg and plead to get the reservation. 

We had stayed at the Four Seasons Singapore in April 1995 (when we met Patrick Stewart in the gym) and loved the hotel then. Well, 30 years later, the hotel wasn’t perfect but we enjoyed our stay there very much.

We did get to see some of the new buildings in Singapore and Marina Sands. We went to the ArtScience Museum there for the spectacular exhibit called Future World: where art meets science. Audre shopped for this and that and also replaced her pearl earrings. We got to the National Orchid Garden at the Botanical Gardens. We went to Little India and found a man to fix our travel scale in no time at all. We saw some of the installations for Singapore Art Week too. We saw the Festive Season lights "and just like that" in January the lights became Lunar New Year lights. We walked the main road in Chinatown and were wowed by them. We vowed that we would return to Singapore in less than 20 years!

Dimitri was able to use Grab for all of our taxi rides and it worked great. Cost is charged to the American Express card, the driver knows the destination and we arrive without any hassles. Of course, in Singapore a Grab ride to dinner was S$20 whereas in Cambodia a Grab ride to dinner there cost US$2. Oh well, Singapore is (along with NYC) the world's most expensive city in 2023. 

We had a great time in Singapore and vowed to return in less than 20 years!

A map of the spots we visited

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