Chinatown Singapore: Food, Temples & the Best Shopping Streets

Singapore's Chinatown is the most concentrated experience of the city's Chinese heritage — a dense grid of shophouses between Outram Park and Maxwell Road that compresses temple architecture, heritage food, and some of the best cheap eating in Singapore into an area walkable in 20 minutes. It's tourist-facing on its main streets and authentically local on its side alleys; knowing which is which is the difference between a good visit and a great one.

The Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road is the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore (1827) and should not be be missed — an extraordinary gopuram tower covered in painted deities rises from a shophouse street, the interior perfumed with marigold garlands and incense. Two minutes away, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum on South Bridge Road is a five-storey Tang Dynasty-inspired Buddhist temple completed in 2007 housing a tooth relic attributed to the historical Buddha. The interior is elaborate and the rooftop garden serene.

For food: Maxwell Food Centre on Maxwell Road is the hawker centre that CNN, Anthony Bourdain, and seemingly every food publication has pointed at repeatedly — Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice (always with a queue) is the famous stall, but the surrounding chicken rice competitors and the char kway teow and laksa stalls are equally good. Chinatown Food Street on Smith Street has an outdoor seating area with multiple stalls and good evening atmosphere. Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre on Sago Lane is a larger, less touristed alternative with excellent variety.

Pagoda Street and Trengganu Street have the souvenir shops; the better shopping is on Ann Siang Hill and Club Street, which have independent boutiques, wine bars, and restaurants in restored shophouses aimed at a more discerning buyer.