Toddler Staycay: The Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore (Stamford Suite)

👍 Great service, handsome rooms: Still our favourite staycay hotel in the city.
👎 No views, pool is tiny and suitable only for relaxing

We wrapped up our Year of the Covid* 🦠 Staycay tour hotel at one of our favorite hotels in the city: The Capitol Kempinski Hotel! Housed in an 80-year old complex comprising of (formerly) Shaws Building and Namazie Mansions, the Hotel's excellent service, gorgeous rooms, and great dining options earn it an easy recommendation - unless a large swimming pool (or out-of-Singapore) feel is important to you.

* Technically it does seem like the entire 2021 will also be year of the Covid, doesn't it? Ah well, fingers crossed that the vaccine does its job and we can start travelling again in the later part of the year!

Hotels in the Staycay tour:
Raffles Hotel | Capella Singapore | Marriott Tang Plaza | The St.Regis Singapore | Grand Hyatt | The Fullerton Bay Hotel | Parkroyal Collection, Marina Bay | Marina Bay Sands | Sofitel Sentosa Resort & Spa | The Capitol Kempinski Hotel


We stayed here just over a year ago in the hotel's Terrace Room; This time we got upgraded to a Stamford Suite instead (from Grand Deluxe Room)! The suite is huge and well equipped, with no really dangerous areas for a semi-hyperactive toddler (other than the standard ones like table edges). If it's your first staycay and/or if your toddler has just started running around and climbing up and down furniture, hotel rooms might give you heart attacks at first, but in our experience it's quite unlikely for hotel rooms to have features on which your baby can really seriously injure him/herself.


The layout's a little unorthodox: Upon walking in, the toilet & sinks are on your left, and the shower & bathtub are on your right, with the living room & bedroom straight ahead. It seems a little strange at first, but thanks to the sliding doors that can partition all the different spaces, it's easy to settle in and have as much privacy between areas as you wish.

Oh, and the toilet has one of those high tech bidet seats that spray your ass and even opens and closes by button-touch, so if you were so inclined you could do your business and not need to wash hands afterwards.


Naturally both the bedroom and the living room area have their own televisions - with a limited number of local and international channels, but more importantly, flawless Apple Airplay support. Audio from the television sets is (relatively) amazing thanks to Sonos soundbars. All in all the entertainment's top notch and shouldn't disappoint.


Back to the living room: The standard complement of tea & nespresso coffee is complimentary, as are all drinks in the minibar fridge (water, juices, soft drinks).


The Hotel supplies Salvatore Ferragamo amenities: I'm unfortunately not a cleansing product snob, pretty much all hotels' soaps and shampoo are good enough for me, so I can't really comment if these ones were any better (or worse) than others.


Given that the swimming pool is quite tiny (and therefore there's a high chance of you not getting a pool slot at your desired timing), it's great that the Kempinski Singapore's tub delivers a great alternative. It's huge enough for 2 adults and a toddler, and there's even a small television (with water-resistant remote control). Bath salts are supplied, but for a special treat you can always walk across the road and pick up a bath bomb from Lush @ Raffles City.


If you just want to shower instead the shower stall has a wall-mounted shower, hand-held shower, and rain shower, so the only thing missing is really a half-naked attendant standing in the corner.


Bathrobes and slippers are available for use in the room & to walk to the swimming pool. On the bathrobe-comfort-ranking scale these are really plush and comfortable, but not quite up to Fullerton Bay Hotel's crazy comfortable robes.


The welcome amenity - a basket of fruit & assorted nuts - came compliments of our Black-level membership in GHA Discovery. And yes, we really did stay on our wedding anniversary date.

Random thought: If you stay at - for example - 12 different hotels throughout the year, is there anything stopping you from celebrating your anniversary 12 times? It's not like the front desk is going to browse your social media to verify, are they?


Anyway like I mentioned in last year's review, Kempinski Singapore's most glaring weak point really is its' pool: It's tiny, and has no shade from the afternoon sun. With covid capacity restrictions now in place you really need to book extremely early (or make do with like, 11am-12pm pool slots). The pool is also clearly for relaxation / soaking / sunbathing, and not suitable for anyone who wants to do laps.


Having said that, the pool is relatively good for toddlers. On each side there's a jacuzzi ledge that's just right for toddlers to wade and play with the air / water bubbles. The ledge is a pretty good size, too - maybe something like 6' by 4' so one adult on half-alert is probably enough to keep your little one from drowning.


Breakfast is served at Kempinski's flagship dining restaurant: 15 Stamford by Alvin Leung. It's one of the better breakfasts in our staycays in the last year: Not quite as good as Raffles perhaps, but pretty much a strong contender for joint 2nd place (with Fullerton Bay and St. Regis). Variety is good, some food items were great, and service was top notch, but we were disappointed by the nasi lemak.


The Capitol Kempinski Singapore cements itself as our favourite city-center staycaytion hotel in Singapore, then. Service from the ladies-in-red (and a few of the old timers in 15 Stamford) is great, the hotel rooms are luxurious, and the hotel's nicely connected to a part of the central region that's not as crowded/busy as others. Staycay fatigue has set in a little for us, though, so we'll take a break - but if you're planning an upcoming staycaytion you won't be disappointed!

Look See Eat

A review of Aura, National Gallery Singapore (4 Hands Kitchen)

👍 Imaginative Dishes, well-balanced flavours and textures. Gorgeous dining area.
👎 Nothing much ... except maybe for the fish.

Last week the darling and I spent a few hours in Aura's super gorgeous dining room, stuffing ourselves on terrific Italian fare from both resident chef Beppe de Vito, and visiting chef Luigi Taglienti (who hails from one-Michelin-starred Lume Restaurant in Milan). Although Aura itself isn't Michelin-starred (yet?), Chef Beppe's other Singapore restaurant - Braci - is also one-starred, so we go in with pretty high expectations!


To start - warm, buttered foccacia bread, served with a delightfully fragrant extra virgin olive oil (though strangely, no balsamic vinegar).


The dinner then properly starts with the first amuse bouche: Chef Luigi's White on White (Passion fruit cream sandwiched by rice crackers & topped with edible flowers). Flowers, as always, are really just for show (they're pretty much tasteless), but the airy, light, crisp rice crackers & just-the-right-hint-of-sour passion fruit cream really do whet the appetite.


Chef Beppe's amuse bouche is the Uni and Scallop, which - as you may have guessed - is Uni and a Hokkaido Scallop. Topped with caviar and wrapped in a shiso leaf. I'm not really sure that Italians traditionally eat uni and scallop like this, but there's no need to complain when the bite tastes this good: Creamy, briny, sweet, salty ... and that nice ever-so-slight pungent flavours from the shiso leaf.


We move on to the first of the hot dishes then, with Chef Luigi serving up a Squid Scampi in Black and White: Tender, juicy scampi with mushroom, sunchoke (jerusalem artichoke) puree and a pork jus. Probably the standout plate of the night for us.


Chef Beppe then serves up his Coho Salmon, White Asparagus and Wild Garlic. The salmon was cooked ever so slightly to a 'barely rare' temperature, which was amazing texture-wise. The asparagus was likewise also delicious. We didn't like the crisp skin, though. It seemed to have been cooked and then flattened in the dehydrator, which did result in it being terrifically crispy, but also tasting too much like scales.


We continue again with Chef Beppe's dish: Lobster Tortelli, Fava Beans, and Yuzu Salmoriglio. This was another terrific hit. Perfectly portioned and textured tortelli with just the right amount of well cooked lobster meat. The accompanying lobster broth was perhaps just a tad bit salty, but nevertheless had an amazing depth of (lobster) flavour.


Chef Luigi's Seabass and Celeriac, however, was a little anti-climactic. The fish itself was juicy and at just the right temperature, but seabass is a very mild tasting fish, and its flavours were totally overpowered here by the strong tanginess of the celariac.


The final hot plate of the night ended with Chef Beppe's Kagoshima Wagyu, Kale and Wasabi Oil. As you'd expect from a proper wagyu steak, it was juicy and sinfully oily, and seasoned with just the right hint of salt. The accompanying kale (crispy and light: probably deep fried) and kale puree were nice, but really our opinions are that good steaks are perfectly able to hold the stage alone without needing any supporting cast at all.


For dessert, chef Luigi's rendition of a Black Truffle Tiramisu was a revelation. The truffle-laced mascarpone cream was came in a chocolate / fingers / biscuit-like casing, sprinkled with chocolate powder and topped with more truffle. Utterly delicious.


And finally to end the night: Chamomile Tea (complimentary) and Petit Fours of Olive Oil macaron, chocolate tart, and limoncello-laced strawberry.


For just under a hundred (nett) per person, we thought that the dinner was good value, and thoroughly enjoyed all the dishes (except for the seabass)!

Aura is on the fifth floor of the National Gallery Singapore (which, by the way, has free entry for Singaporeans and Singapore PRs). Reservations Recommended; Non-Halal.

Look See Eat