Singapore’s Odette and Raffles Hotel places first among Trip.Best Asia restaurants and hotels

While most of Singapore’s fine dining restaurants saw a dip in their rankings on the World’s Best 50 restaurants, Singapore performed much better on Trip.com’s recently released 2024 Trip.Best Global and Asia 100 lists — with Singapore’s Odette placed first on the Asia best fine dining restaurants.

In their Trip.Best Global and Asia 100 lists, Trip.com ranks various top hotels, attractions, nightlife, restaurants, and overall destinations. For restaurants, only the Asia 100 list is present, there is no Global list.  

These lists are curated by referencing the various travel listings on Trip.com, looking at the user reviews, year-round sales popularity, continuous quality, and distinctive themes, then using an algorithm to score them. 

Culinary success

Therefore, it is possible for Odette to attain first place on Trip.Best Asia Fining Dining Restaurants, despite ranking 10th place on Asia’s Best 50 Restaurants, as the people voting on the ranks are different. Odette appears to be a year-round favourite among its guests.

Located in the National Gallery, Odette serves five-to-seven course tasting menus based on modern French cuisine. The well-fitting combination between the historic site and former supreme court must only add to its popularity.

Besides Odette, all of Singapore’s ranked restaurants sit among the top 50: Summer Pavilion at 27th, Le Amis at 30th place, and Zén at 37th. 

Singapore isn’t the only Southeast Asia restaurant in the top 50. Thailand’s ranked restaurants are also all ranked highly, Sorn at 9th, Gaggan at 23rd, Restaurant Potong at 38th, and Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin at 40th. 

Gaggan’s ranking of 23rd is noteworthy, as it achieved 9th on the World’s Best 50 Restaurants. This only further cements how a different set of criteria are being used for the Trip.Best rankings. Trip.com is in the travel industry, and thus its rankings are likely focussed on how the everyday person finds these experiences while overseas.

Luxury stays

Besides restaurants, Singapore performed well on the Global 100 Luxury Hotels list. Raffles Hotel was the highest ranking Asian Hotel. 

Raffles Hotel was ranked 2nd, sandwiched between two Parisian hotels — behind Hotel de Crillon, a Rosewood Hotel, and ahead of Le Bristol Paris, an Oetker Collection Hotel. 

On the Asia list, Raffles Hotel sits comfortably at 1st place, and one other Singapore hotel made the top 100: Capella Singapore. 

Of our neighbours, Thailand continues to perform well on the global and Asia. Thailand has 2 hotels in the global top 10, Capella Bangkok at 6th, and Mandarin Oriental Bangkok at 10th. On the Asia list, Thailand has 6 hotels in the top 50, with 9 hotels on the list overall, meaning that Thai hotels account for around 10% of the top 50 and overall top 100 hotels in Asia. 

A number of hotels, 6 from Indonesia, 4 from Vietnam, and 3 from Malaysia also placed on the list. The high amount of hotels from indicates that Southeast Asia is developing into a luxury vacation hotspot. 

Fun at night and day

However, Singapore is the only Southeast Asian country to place on the Global 100 best things to do, and nightlife lists. 

Singapore’s Universal Studios is at 6th place, while Sentosa is at 7th, of the global best things to do. For nightlife, Singapore Flyer is 33rd on the global rankings, and our cable car is at 55th position. 

Despite that, Thailand still beat Singapore as a global destination, according to Trip.Best.

Trip.Best has a top 100 destination list. At the top of the list is Paris, France, but in 2nd place is Bangkok, Thailand. Singapore is at 4th place, behind Beijing, China, and ahead of London, United Kingdom. 

It appears that, while Singapore enjoyed a remarkable showing on Trip.com's 2024 lists, Thailand is the more popular travel destination for those around the world. This can likely be attributed to Thailand's wider variety of experiences, particularly its mix of outdoor experiences — such as river rafting, cliff jumping, or exploring Thailand’s numerous karsts landscapes — with city life in places like Bangkok, and beach getaways in areas like Phuket, all at a potentially more affordable price point. 

However, Singapore's impressive performances across various categories shouldn’t be ignored either; it is among the top 5 travel destinations, indicating its year-round popularity among global travellers. As travel preferences and priorities continue to evolve, it will be interesting to see how these rankings shift in the coming years.