There’s no shortage of watering holes surrounding Dimple, which makes co-founders Anoop Kalloor and Natalie Siu’s decision to set up shop at Purvis Street a fantastically bold choice.
“We envisioned Dimple as a place that reflects the hospitality values we hold dear to our hearts,” says Kalloor, who launched the bar with Hong Kong native Siu in late 2024. “We want our guests to feel at home in a cosy space that celebrates Hong Kong’s food and drink heritage.”
Optimistic as he sounds, we can’t help but think that stiff competition in the area would make things especially tough for a new entrant. But then we hear the man behind the bar, Marcus Liow, comes with a decent sum of experience, having most recently served as head mixologist at MOGA in Pullman Singapore Hill Street. We set aside our apprehension and head on in.
Set in the lobby of Hotel NuVe Heritage, Dimple has a cosy — if not slightly awkward, especially near the entryway — layout, with a seating capacity of just 30. All drinks are priced at $25++, and there’s a selection of bar bites to accompany the tipples.
We start off with one of the bar’s signature concoctions, the Passionfruit Martini, which combines gin, oolong-infused dry sake and citrus. It’s sweet and fruity with just enough zing to keep us entertained. A house-made foam of passionfruit and sea salt adds a little visual interest to the drink, though it doesn’t do much to elevate flavour, and we personally find foams to be enjoyable only in very few applications.
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Eager to continue the fruit-forward theme we move onto the Grapefruit Paloma, which, if you really think about it, is a little like saying “ATM machine”. Redundancies aside, this is an easy sipper that’s light enough to enjoy with anything on the bar’s food menu. We recommend the curry fishballs, which are simple but comforting.
Venturing into savoury territory, we have the Tomato Caprese, a clear gin-based drink that we think might be just a tad too far off the deep end. Much as we like our savoury drinks, this reminds us of a Christmas ham. The intense salinity leaves us searching desperately for those other promised ingredients on the menu: elderflower liqueur, citrus and pepper.
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Our final drink is the Hazelnut Old Fashioned, a rich — yet surprisingly non-cloying — blend of hazelnut-infused bourbon with oloroso cherry and chocolate bitters. Garnished with a chocolate truffle, it’s a sweet choice to cap off a night out.
As we polish off the last fishball, we think back to Dimple’s initial promise of Hong Kong inspiration, and we quickly realise our food was certainly more reminiscent of the city than the drinks were. That’s not quite a deal breaker, though a fully fleshed-out concept would have been nice to see. Still, there’s a little decent drinking to be had here, so perhaps it’s worth a spin if you’re already trawling the area for a cocktail.
Dimple
3 Purvis Street
Singapore 188592
Tel: +65 8054 0008
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 6pm – 1am
