While the search for authentic and traditional hawker stalls often brings foodies to remote corners of Singapore, the truth is that you can find most of its best and brightest right in the centre of the action.
Located within walking distance from each other in the nexus of Singapore’s Central Business District are two bona fide hawker hotspots. There’s Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, cramming over 200 stalls into a labyrinthine multi-story building steeped in history; and the bustling Maxwell Food Centre, a stalwart made even more famous after late celebrity foodie Anthony Bourdain declared Bib Gourmand stall Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice his favourite place to get the iconic Singaporean dish.
Located within walking distance from each other in the nexus of Singapore’s Central Business District are two bona fide hawker hotspots: Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre and Maxwell Food Centre (Photo: Shutterstock)
It’s no wonder that you often have to jostle with bustling crowds of office workers from the nearby skyscrapers and tourists alike just to get a seat. Read on for a list of MICHELIN-recognised stalls to get the best bang for your buck (and make the most of limited stomach real estate).
Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre
Bib Gourmand • Inspectors’ favourites for good value
Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, #02-198/199, 335 Smith Street, Singapore
Lian He Ben Ji Claypot
Bib GourmandMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
Established in 1979, this humble stall is now helmed by second-generation owners, who still maintain the strict tradition of cooking each pot of rice from scratch over charcoal fire. The claypot rice comes studded with fragrant ingredients like duck liver sausages, lup cheong, waxed meat, chunks of chicken, and salted fish. Remember to scrape right to the bottom of the pot for the crispy charred bits of rice. Service here is brisk, and the wait can stretch any time from 20 to 45 minutes. But with prices starting at S$8 for a small pot to S$20 for a large, they're on the lower end of the market rate.
Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, #02-112, 335 Smith Street, Singapore
Ann Chin Handmade Popiah
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
Founded in the 1940s, there are now several other outlets of this famous popiah stall in Singapore, but it’s always worth a visit to the flagship in Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, where the generously stuffed rolls are made fresh every day — including the delicate, paper-thin skin that requires some deft skills on a hot plate to make. Each wrap (S$2.20) is filled with ingredients including sweet, savoury shredded mang kuang (turnip), eggs, shrimp, carrot, and peanuts bound together with sweet sauce and chilli sauce.
Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, #02-168, 335 Smith Street, Singapore
C.M.Y. Satay
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
C.M.Y. Satay is known for its cook-to-order satay and serves three types of meat — chicken, mutton, and pork. In a unique take on the usual accompaniment, pineapple pulp is used in the sauce, adding another dimension of bright sweetness. The meat-to-fat ratio of the satay at this stall is slightly higher, so it is not too fatty, and you can really taste the flavour of the meat without greasiness from the fat.
Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, #02-84, 335 Smith Street, Singapore
Fatty Ox HK Kitchen
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
Tucked away in the corner of the second floor, Fatty Ox HK Kitchen is pleasantly positioned away from the bustle of the main market. The hawker stall is most well-known for its beef brisket noodles (S$6), and our inspectors enjoyed the authentic Hong Kong-style Cantonese noodles here (S$4-S$5), topped with pork trotter or barbecued meats like roast duck or chicken, as well as char siew.
Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, #02-173, 335 Smith Street, Singapore
Food Street Fried Kway Teow Mee
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
Follow your nose — or the invariably long queue snaking along the hawker centre’s second floor — to Food Street Fried Kway Teow Mee, a recent entrant to the MICHELIN Guide. The understated stall specialises in just one dish: wok-fried char kway teow brimming with smoky flavour, briny cockles, and an unrestrained splash of caramelly dark soya sauce. The stall opens in the afternoon with cash as the only accepted form of payment.
Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, #02-048, 335 Smith Street, Singapore
The 1950's Coffee
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
This stall in Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, used to offer a typically Singaporean breakfast set of Hainanese-style kaya toast and soft-boiled eggs with a cup of traditional black coffee, so delicious it inspired our inspectors to write a poem in Chinese on its restaurant listing. However, this stall has now streamlined its menu, forgoing the crisp toast and runny eggs to focus solely on dishing out cups of fragrant, smooth kopi-o (black coffee with sugar, S$1.30) in short order, any time of the day. Good to know: their branch over at Maxwell Food Centre still sells the kaya toast sets.
Maxwell Food Centre
Bib Gourmand • Inspectors’ favourites for good value
Maxwell Food Centre, #01-10/11, 1 Kadayanallur Street, Singapore
Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice
Bib GourmandMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
Chicken rice, a deceptively simple pairing of delicately poached chicken and aromatic oily rice that’s flavourful enough to be eaten on its own, is perhaps Singapore’s most iconic dish, and there’s no better place to get it than at Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice in Maxwell Food Centre. Don’t come too hungry though, as it often boasts a queue stretching all the way out of the hawker centre along a covered walkway. But exercise some patience, and you’ll be duly rewarded with tender chicken draped in velvety, plump skin.
Maxwell Food Centre, #01-05, 1 Kadayanallur Street, Singapore
Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
Oyster cakes — savoury fritters often cheekily referred to as UFOs for their distinctive flying saucer-like shape — are a fast-disappearing snack that can only be found in a smattering of stalls around Singapore. Family-run Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake is one such proprietor, who continues to do things the old way, assembling the rounds to order by hand before deep-frying them until deliciously crunchy. Work your way through the crispy rice flour batter to get to the bounty of oysters, prawns, coriander, and minced pork nestled within, and don’t forget the sour-spicy chilli to go with it.
Maxwell Food Centre, #01-56, 1 Kadayanallur Street, Singapore
Rojak‧Popiah & Cockle
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
If the name wasn’t enough of a clue for you, Rojak‧Popiah & Cockle sells three dishes — rojak, a salad-esque mix of fried dough fritters, pineapple, beansprouts, and vegetables tossed in a sweet-spicy prawn paste sauce and laden with chopped nuts; popiah, a light, veggie-forward roll stuffed with sliced turnip, fresh cabbage, carrots, hard-boiled eggs, and ground peanuts; and boiled cockles. It’s an intriguing combination that’s managed to earn the stall an ardent following despite stiff competition from the other heavyweights in Maxwell Food Centre.
This article was originally written in January 2021 by Rachel Tan and updated by Alvin Tan and Mikka Wee in September 2024.
