Pan Pacific Singapore Marks 40 Years On Marina Bay

Pan Pacific Singapore has held its place on the Marina Bay skyline since 1986, when it opened as one of the city's first true luxury hotels. The 38-floor property now runs to 790 guestrooms and suites, six restaurants and bars, and 2,329 square metres of meeting and event space, anchored by a Grand Atrium and Atrium Lounge built around what the hotel calls a garden-in-a-hotel effect.

Its 40th year has brought a run of celebrations across nearly every one of those venues, each tied to a specific chef or team rather than a single blanket anniversary menu.

Across The Kitchens

At Edge, the hotel's buffet restaurant, executive chef Andy Oh has built a weekday lunch running through November 15, moving across Singaporean, Chinese, Malay, Indian, Japanese, Thai and Western dishes in a single sitting. Cantonese cooking gets its own dedicated moment at Hai Tien Lo, where executive Chinese chef Edden Yap is pairing contemporary dim sum with a bottle of Changyu wine on weekdays through December. Japanese cooking runs through Keyaki, where executive chef Teruya Noriyoshi and head teppanyaki chef Eric Yong have built a 12-seat counter lunch through the end of the year, opening with a foie gras terrine set in a rice waffle and mozuku seaweed with snow crab meat and jimami tofu, before guests choose between Hokkaido white pork, chicken or wagyu beef cooked in front of them. At Pacific Emporium, the hotel's combined dining-and-deli concept, executive pastry chef Edina Si has added a Coconut Crystal Cake to the case through the end of December, layering coconut chiffon against light coconut cream and a coconut crystal jelly.

At The Bar, The Spa, And The Room Itself

Plume, the hotel's bar, has built its own contribution around drinking rather than eating: head mixologist Akmal Haqim and bar manager Siew Han Jun have put together a three-cocktail tasting flight drawn from Asia-Pacific ingredients, served with bar bites designed specifically to sit alongside it. The spa has taken a lighter touch. St. Gregory is offering a 40-minute express massage timed, deliberately or not, to the number on the anniversary itself, and guests staying the night can book a 40th Anniversary Stay Package, a room for two that bundles in breakfast at Edge and a welcome drink at Plume. None of it amounts to a single showstopping gesture so much as a hotel using its fortieth year as an excuse to let every one of its kitchens and bars do something slightly more ambitious than usual, which is, in the end, still one more reason to book a stay at an address that has been running strong on Marina Bay since 1986.