THE GOLD STANDARD

NEON-LIT AND EMOTIONALLY CHARGED, THE BARTENDER’S DIARY VOL. II SEES STAY GOLD FLAMINGO TRANSFORM COCKTAILS AND COMFORT FOOD INTO A LIVING RECORD OF NIGHTLIFE AT ITS MOST HUMAN.

- INDRAN PARAMASIVAM

I'LL NEVER TIRE OF HEARING ‘California Love’ plume from speakers in an establishment that serves upper-echelon food and drink. But the force of that song ‘hits different’ when it's played at Stay Gold Flamingo.

There, a distinct collision between swagger and polish finds time-stopping expression nightly. Co-founded by Jerrold Khoo, Bai Jia Wei, and Amos Kew, the bar resolves that contradiction through a programme that splits the difference between Japanese meticulousness and American derring-do and rock ‘n’ roll. Plush booths glow beneath neon proclamations (NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY), hip-hop and indie sleaze music envelop the room with deliberate irreverence, and cocktails land on your table with the kind of technical fluency that jostles with your admiration for the care and audacity behind it.

Now, the stakes are higher. Its new menu, The Bartender's Diary Vol. II: The Mixtape, sharpens that philosophy into thrilling focus: a life-rich, scribble-streaked meditation on hospitality, and the ecstatic possibilities of craft that celebrate the possibilities of precision loosened at the collar.

GRIT AND GLORY