Bar Kap: New cocktail bar within the historic House of Tan Yeok Nee

If you’ve ever walked past the grand House of Tan Yeok Nee on Penang Road near Dhoby Ghaut and wondered what was inside, here’s your excuse to finally step in.

Following the opening of French-Japanese fine-dining concept Loca Niru, the 140-year-old House of Tan Yeok Nee has unveiled Bar Kap, an intimate cocktail bar, whose debut menu takes inspiration from the building’s many lives over the past century.

Built in the 1880s as the home of Teochew merchant Tan Yeok Nee, the gazetted national monument is the last surviving of Singapore’s “grand mansions” — lavish Chinese residences built by wealthy Teochew businessmen.

Over the decades, the building has served as everything, from a private residence and girls’ school, to the Salvation Army headquarters before being painstakingly restored by the Karim Family Foundation and opened to the public for the first time in 2025.

At the heart of the bar is a unique Y-shaped communal counter that brings more guests closer to the bartenders than a conventional bar layout. 

Behind the bar sit pointed-arch windows — an unusual sight in a traditional Teochew mansion, but are remnants from the building’s time as a girls’ home.

Look up and you’ll notice the mansion’s original timber beams and intricate carvings. 

A sign with the Chinese characters “南昌” (nan chang) also hangs above, but this is a more recent addition — the name of a soap factory founded by the father of Karim Family Foundation’s principal Bachtiar Karim.

Flanking the main space are cosy elevated booths inspired by traditional Chinese teahouses. Raised slightly above the rest of the space, they offer an unobstructed view of the bartenders, even if you’re not seated at the counter.

If you need something cosier, it has private rooms on the side, too, one modelled after a train cabin — the area was once a carriage porch and the residence also once housed a British station master — and the other inspired by a traditional apothecary. 

With so much going on, suffice to say, we were wowed even before we started on the drinks. 

[related_drinks]

Storied drinks for the evening 

Before you’re even handed a menu, you’re presented with a beautifully crafted wooden storytelling box. Choose one of the carved wooden artefacts — each modelled after an object found somewhere within the venue — and it’ll guide you to one of four cocktail categories.

Each one is inspired by a different period in the mansion’s history, with each chapter comprising three alcoholic beverages and a zero-proof one.

The menu was conceptualised with hospitality consultancy Studio Ryecroft, while bar manager Edwin Tan — formerly of Sago House and the now-defunct The Cufflink Club — brings each cocktail to life. Despite a packed bar, he eagerly walks guests through the inspiration behind every drink. 

We start with the Pepper Peddler (S$28), a lightly fizzy highball inspired by Tan Yeok Nee’s pepper trading business. It blends baijiu, gin and makgeolli with peppercorns and a firewater tincture — a spicy alcohol infusion — for a gentle peppery warmth, rather than an outright kick.

Next, the Tank Road (S$28) is a throwback to the mansion’s time as a station master’s residence.

It is essentially a cross between a Garibaldi (a classic Italian aperitivo of Campari and orange juice) and a whisky sour, with roasted orange and bay syrup lending depth to the citrus-forward Scotch cocktail. 

Once you’re sufficiently warmed up, the Lights Out (S$25) is an apt chaser. Despite the name, Lights Out isn’t a nod to your impending inebriation, but rather to the mansion’s chapter as St Mary’s Home and School for Eurasian Girls.

The martini riff, featuring gin, vermouth, mandarin and fragrant pandan oil, is expectedly spirit-forward, though I found myself wishing for slightly more pronounced citrus and pandan notes.

One of the menu’s biggest crowd favourites is actually the non-alcoholic TCM No. 3 (S$18), which tastes almost like a chilled Chinese dessert.

The creamy blend of soy milk, ginger, honeydew and gula Melaka is comforting on its own, but if you’re not avoiding alcohol, spring for the optional rum upgrade — it adds another layer of richness that really ties everything together.

Comforting plates to match 

Now, cocktails may be the main draw at Bar Kap, but the food is far from an afterthought.

If you order just one dish, make it the mee Kapitan (S$20), a unanimous favourite at our table that evening. Springy noodles are tossed with minced pork, sakura ebi, shrimp paste, pork lard, chives, and just enough mala sauce to keep every bite interesting.

Savoury, umami, and brimming with lardy aroma, it’s the type of plate that’ll keep you going even after a couple of strong drinks.

The slow-cooked chilli pork jowl (S$24) makes for the perfect accompaniment, especially with the spice-forward coconut-chilli sambal. It has the right amount of kick to cut through the richness of the tender pork jowl, without being too overwhelming. 

Lastly, I usually consider cocktails as the sweets to my meal, but you wouldn’t want to miss out on its Sesame Potstickers (S$10) and ice-cream sandwich (S$9).

The Sesame Potstickers cleverly flip expectations, serving up chewy glutinous rice parcels filled with fragrant black sesame — instead of savoury dumplings — complete with the crisp flour lattice you’d expect from traditional potstickers.

And the ice-cream sandwich, served with rainbow bread, feels like an apt way to end the evening inside one of the country’s oldest surviving heritage homes, since it’s a quintessentially Singaporean treat.

Whether you’re dropping by for a pre-dinner cocktail or settling in for a full night out, Bar Kap is easily one of the most compelling new cocktail bar openings in the city this year, even if you’re not a history or heritage buff.

Through its carefully restored interiors, story-driven menu, and knowledgeable team, you’ll likely leave with a greater appreciation of the venue’s storied past — and perhaps just enough curiosity to return and uncover more of its stories.

This was a hosted tasting.

For more places to dine around the area, check out our Plaza Singapura food guide or head to The Foundry Table for some Mediterranean fare.