Hanoi Story Bar

Hanoi Story Bar is the evening half of a dual-concept venue on the ground floor of Concourse Skyline, directly across from Nicoll Highway MRT. By day the space trades as Tokyo Brew Lab, a pour-over coffee bar; at 5pm the lights drop and it becomes a craft beer bar with a Vietnamese accent - same red feature wall lined with vinyl records, same central bar counter, entirely different drinks list.

Owners Bobby Yeoh and Flin Lee lean towards sours and hop-forward IPAs, and the tap list rotates monthly to spotlight different breweries from around Asia. Early line-ups have featured Chinese craft from Wild West Brewing in Chengdu (single, double and triple IPAs) and fruit-heavy smoothie sours from Ye Brewing in Shijiazhuang. Alongside the beer there are craft cocktails built on Vietnamese spirits and sake from the Vietnamese distillery Mua, in flavours like passionfruit and yuzu dragonfruit.

Food follows the same thread - anchovy crackers and river prawn fritters with Vietnamese chilli sauces, fish-sauce-marinated fried pork belly, and a spicy fried chicken plate that riffs on la zi ji. The room is small and comfortable, with sofas and low seating as well as bar stools, and the Japanese city pop soundtrack carries over from the daytime concept.

Worth knowing before you go: the bar only opens at 5pm on weekdays, and Sunday is a daytime-only session from 11am to 3pm. The Beach Road location makes it an easy stop between the CBD and Kampong Glam, and it remains fairly under the radar despite sitting right on top of an MRT station.