If you’ve ever stepped into Grace Espresso along River Valley Road, you may have noticed a distinctive feature at the back of the café: a striking painting of Bird of Paradise flowers contrasting against the navy-blue walls. The artwork was hand-painted in 2021 by Geraldine Toh, the mural artist behind The Ochre Home. Other significant murals can be spotted at various locations around Singapore, including memorable works by Yip Yew Chong in Chinatown. These murals have become an integral part of Singapore’s urban landscape, but mural artists have also started expanding to other, less public spaces.

A visual artist by training, Toh painted her first mural in her childhood bedroom—to the dismay of her mother, who was rather against the idea. It wasn’t until she moved into her own place that she had the opportunity to paint another mural, almost seven years later. As she began sharing her home renovation journey and her mural work on Instagram back in 2019, she quickly drew a following, inspiring other homeowners to request similar murals for their own interiors, too.

With a preferred subject matter and her unique painting style, how then does she adapt her work to suit a particular home interior? “Some homeowners have colour requirements. They may show me photos of their home and want to keep [the colours] consistent, or some may show me their wedding flowers. They may also have hard requirements, such as including peonies,” Toh shares. “Everything else is up to me to suggest. That’s how I balance incorporating my style and what [my clients] ask for.”

While most of her work adorns indoor spaces, she recently completed poolside murals for two private residences. These proved to be challenging projects, introducing unexpected considerations that don’t apply to interior murals. “The environment is actually quite tough to paint in,” Toh shares. “It’s noisy, dusty and dark. The homes were undergoing renovations, so I had to push the scaffolding [around] as I worked on different parts of the pool wall. It’s also very weather-reliant as it’s not sheltered.” Rainy days were particularly difficult, smudging any fresh paint. The larger of the two poolside murals—spanning 16 metres—took eight full days to complete. This kind of work requires long hours, unwavering dedication, and a strong focus. 

What’s perhaps most surprising is her paint of choice. Rather than traditional wall paint, the standard for most mural artists, Toh works with acrylic paint. “Wall paint dries flat. When you paint murals, you typically want detail and gradients. With wall paint, it’s quite difficult to achieve this because the colours are just going to flatten out,” she explains. “There’s also a problem with mixing because the consistency [of wall paint] is much thicker.”

Having worked with acrylic paint since the beginning of her art journey, it has remained her favourite medium over the years. She reassures us that durability isn’t an issue, either: “It’s water-resistant and weatherproof. There’s no need for an additional coat, even near a pool.”

Beyond interior paintings and poolside murals, Toh has been dipping her toes into other applications of her signature botanicals, exploring collaborations in the worlds of fashion, packaging and installation art. Regardless of the context, unusual requests and challenging projects always pique her interest.

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In June last year, Pan Pacific Orchard finally opened its doors after much anticipation. Located between the Thai embassy and Orchard Towers, the property is the latest flagship hotel under the Pan Pacific Hotels Group. It marks the latest development in the green rejuvenation of Singapore’s Orchard Road district. 

Developed by UOL, the 23-storey hotel was designed by Woha Architects; Pan Pacific Orchard is part of the Singapore-based firm’s ongoing research into green buildings. As such, this new property features dramatic, terraced greenery that occupies over 300 per cent of the hotel’s land area. 

A key feature of the hotel that guests will instantly witness upon entrance is its open-air front desk lobby—something not commonly found within luxury hotels in Orchard Road. After all, Woha had envisioned Pan Pacific Orchard as a new prototype for high-rise tropical hospitality, making this hotel one of Singapore’s only luxury hotels designed with the environment in mind, brimming with 14,000 sqm of foliage and water features, a high-ceiling open-air lobby and energy-saving features like rainwater collection, solar panel technology and a bio-digester system.

Once guests arrive at the Forest Terrace, they can enjoy a breezy check-in surrounded by tranquil greenery. We were quickly shown to our suite by attentive staff members despite the sheer number of people waiting to check-in. Although the hotel only recently opened in June 2023, there was already a good mix of locals and tourists staying there. 

The hotel offers 347 rooms and suites, each meticulously designed for comfort and luxury, including cosy 400-thread count cotton bedding and luxurious bath amenities by French fragrance house Diptyque. Guests are encouraged to adopt sustainable practices in small ways as there are in-room filtered water dispensers provided alongside reusable bottles made with ocean-bound material. 

Guests can enjoy access to the exclusive Pacific Club Lounge where there is a dedicated check-in area and other benefits if they book any of the upper-tier rooms including the Pacific Club Room; Pacific Club Balcony Room; Beach Club Loft and Terrace Suite.

This club lounge features both indoor and outdoor seating areas, with all-day refreshments and culinary offerings, including breakfast, afternoon tea, and evening cocktails accompanied by delectable canapés during sundown. Plus, you will get to enjoy a late check-out time at 4pm.

If you have the time, be sure to book yourself an afternoon tea session at Florette. In collaboration with luxury ceramics maker Wedgwood, the afternoon tea set here is a whimsical interpretation of the classic afternoon tea, served on playful Wedgwood crockery, crafted from fine bone china. 

The tiered set includes sandwiches, pastries and paired with any TWG tea of Lavazza coffee of your choice. You can also enhance the experience by opting for a glass of Copenhagen iced tea, coffee served in a French press (by homegrown brand Bacha coffee), or perhaps even a glass of bubbly suggested by the sommelier. 

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Renowned for being one of the best dining cities in the world, it is always an exercise in taste and adventure when sampling the never-ending crop of new restaurants and bars popping up in Singapore. With so many bold, new concepts popping up on our shores, we’ve made it a priority to keep track of all these new openings for you to put on your gastronomic itinerary. Don’t know where to eat next? 

Indulge in hearty bowls of noodles at Nou, which includes gems like “duck kut teh mee sua”, featuring a white pepper bak kut teh broth with duck cigar, and the signature Nou umami noodles, which is doused in an olive scallion sauce with pickled jalapeño and tea ramen eggs. They go well with creative twists on classic cocktails like the “Duck-tini”, starring duck fat-washed Machetazo Salmiana with pickled onion and dill flower, or the “Nougroni”, the house’s version of a negroni with Amazzoni Rio Negro and Carpano Antica. 

Those with a penchant for Italian fare get excited as Little Italy has opened its third outlet at Woodleigh Mall, bringing with it its brand of authentic Italian cuisine. Just a few quality ingredients are emphasised in each dish, bringing out their unique qualities for a simple yet moreish plate. Start your meal with a platter of parma ham and burrata, before digging into pastas like its signature short pasta, tossed in a cream sauce thickened with parmesan and mozzarella with nuggets of porcini mushrooms and Italian sausage and a drizzle of truffle oil. Don’t forget its signature “Little Italy” pizza, which comes with an array of salami, mushrooms, cooked ham and onions for a hearty bite.

At Duomo Ristorante within Chijmes, indulge in classic Italian-Mediterranean fare to soothe the soul. You will find, of course, your favourite Italian classics such as cacio e pepe and cantaloupe wrapped with 24-aged parma ham. But look out for standouts, including the linguine al grancho, featuring a tomato mascarpone sauce with Atlantic crab and spiced with a little bit of chilli. Or enjoy the whole Mediterranean sea bream that’s perfect for sharing, served with zucchini, tomatoes and capers.

Zuicho has also arrived in Singapore at the Mandarin Oriental to serve up its Japanese gastronomy. Helmed by head chef Kenji Takahashi, you can indulge in its elevated kappo fare like fried Miyazaki Wagyu tenderloin, uni with handmade somen noodles, and a handroll packed with minced tuna and bafun uni. 

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Watch influencers and dedicated watch appreciation accounts are aplenty on social media—and there is certainly one for every kind of horological enthusiast. Still, it is very much a male-dominated space, even though things are changing with the rise of more female watch collectors such as Deborah Wong and Stephanie Soh. The close friends are co-founders of TickTockBelles (@ticktockbelles), a women-centric timepiece appreciation community that they started on Instagram in 2022.

“We aim to support women’s interests in watch collecting by promoting watch appreciation as a passion and timepiece collecting as a hobby,” shares Wong, who is a business development leader in the IT industry. “Our vision is to forge a gender-friendly watch community that embraces the female collector.”

The bulk of TickTockBelles’ content centres on showcasing how watches, ranging from vintage to neo-vintage and current collections, look on a woman’s wrist. Wong says that these wrist shots are accompanied by some information about the timepiece, which the platform tries not to overcomplicate in order to remain as accessible and approachable as possible. These posts are interspersed with content on its co-founders, who are always fashionably dressed, attending brand events, or hosting their own events for the TickTockBelles community.

A scroll through the TickTockBelles feed will have many a watch connoisseur in awe of the co-founders’ collections. As the more experienced collector of the two, Soh’s extensive collection stretches back to the first Swatch watches she bought herself as a university student, while Wong only started getting into collecting over six years ago. In fact, it was thanks to a conversation she had with Soh about passing on their timepieces as heirlooms to their children that led Wong to become more serious about her collecting.

Both women have a lot in common when it comes to their discerning tastes in watches. They each own a number of iconic timepieces from big-name brands including Rolex and Patek Philippe, and have more recently started to acquire watches from independent brands such as MB&F. The pair are also big fans of Cartier and own several enviable watches from the Maison.

Soh, a music teacher who also runs a home-made kombucha business on Instagram, acquired a vintage Cartier Incurvée with a manual-winding movement last year, which she considers her favourite watch at the moment for the memorable story behind it. She bought the timepiece with the impression that it was a mini Baignoire but, after sending it to Cartier for servicing in Paris, was told that the watch was not a Baignoire as she originally thought because it was made before Cartier launched the collection, and has a backwinder instead of a crown typical of the watch. After some research, Soh deduced that the watch she had in her possession was in fact an Incurvée, making it extra special for her.

Wong also has a significant Cartier watch in her collection—a special order Cartier Tonneau in white gold with an eggshell dial that she customised to reflect her personal style—and designed with the intention of passing it down to her son in future.

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