Twists, turns and a sense of home at Clarke Quay cocktail bar Abode
The relaxed rooftop venue leads a double life as Pout Cafe before sundown
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[SINGAPORE] Even just six floors up, the view from the top of CMO Building in South Bridge Road sweeps right across Marina Bay. As the sun dips below the horizon, this scene sets the stage for Abode Bar.
For director Andrew Chok, it’s all in the name. “The concept is about home, like going to a friend’s place,” he says. Unsurprisingly, the bar’s look is decidedly laid-back, with few of the hyper-thematic trappings of other venues.
Rather than double down on a particular vibe, Chok wanted to keep Abode’s focus solely on hospitality. “We forget,” he adds, “that going out for a drink can be just about hanging out with friends and having a good time.”
Daylight savings
Chok previously ran modern European restaurant Lumo, which opened in the same building in 2020.
Even then, the idea of having a watering hole upstairs had been seeded. “The landlord told us that this space was available,” he says of the unit now occupied by Abode. “We were planning to run this and Lumo at the same time.”
While Lumo closed in 2024, Chok continued to work towards opening the rooftop bar.
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After securing the space and wrangling with regulations – the unit was originally to be an office, so opening an F&B establishment necessitated a change-of-use application, among other regulatory requirements – Abode was soon nearly ready to open.
Not quite yet, though.
A group of fellow tenants in the building had suggested that a daytime component be added to the business. “They said the look and concept suited a cafe as well,” Chok recalls. With a bit of tinkering, Pout Cafe opened in September 2025 – a few months before the bar made its debut.
The cafe serves up a small menu of coffee, matcha and baked goods. It’s proven popular, even drawing in crowds on weekday mornings and pulling in a “slightly bigger” share of revenue for the business.
The latter was especially unexpected for Chok, who points out that receipts for the cafe tend to be smaller: A black coffee at Pout costs S$4.90, while happy hour cocktails at Abode will set one back S$16 apiece.
“At night, we have much lower volume, but the bill size is slightly higher,” he adds. “I think the volume in the day makes up for it.”
Still, he’s quick to raise that the cafe is open for more hours than the bar, which may also contribute to the higher takings.
On the menu
Abode’s theme – creating a sense of home – is anchored in its cocktail line-up, with drinks that bridge the gap between nostalgia-inducing flavours and contemporary tastes.
While the trope can easily devolve into a muddle of stereotypes, general manager Ryan Hon says there’ll be no corny throwbacks or over-the-top concoctions at Abode.
“We like to keep it simple,” he says. “We want the drinks to be clean, easy to understand and not overly complex.”
The idea, he adds, is to highlight flavours that people can relate to easily.
The bar’s location – overlooking the cityscape – inspired some of the Singapore-tinged drinks on the menu. LKY Ondeh, for instance, calls to mind the dessert from which it gets half its name. The traditional flavours of coconut and pandan are made new and interesting with green banana and a dark rum base.
Other subtle callbacks come in Mystical, a gin-based drink first created at Lumo; there’s also Drag Me Out, which features an old-meets-new pairing of black sesame and dalgona coffee foam.
“The key thing is balance,” Chok explains. “There are always trends in cocktail making. In the past, it was strong, spirit-forward drinks; now... people don’t want their drinks too sweet, but they still want to taste the alcohol in it.”
That emphasis on subtlety means a greater focus on technique. Among the breezier cocktails on Abode’s menu is Anethus, a fizzy mix of dill-infused vodka, citrus and watermelon that practically begs to be enjoyed alfresco against the setting sun.
Rolling with the punches
Half a year after Pout brewed its first cup of joe and just over four months after Abode stirred up its first cocktail, Chok sees business at both picking up.
“People enjoy it,” he says. “They enjoy the view, the drinks, the vibes.”
The response thus far has been positive, he adds, and more people are finding out about the venue even with little put towards advertising.
Still, like many others in the industry, Chok admits that keeping an F&B establishment up and running is tough work. Securing labour, for one thing, can be a struggle with foreign-worker quotas. “Not many locals want to work (in F&B) full-time,” he says.
While things are going well today, Chok wonders aloud if more can be done to help businesses like his succeed.
“Maybe give us a little more leeway,” he says with a chuckle. “Small arts spaces, night spots – we’re the vibrancy of the city.”
Anethus
- 45 ml dill-infused vodka
- 60 ml watermelon juice, triple-filtered
- 45 ml coconut water
- 5 ml “super citrus” juice
- Charged carbon dioxide, for carbonation
- 1 watermelon slice
- 1 dill sprig
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