Walking into Bar Bon Funk, I didn’t know that I’d be entering into one of my favorite spaces. In the beverage and hospitality industry, a night out in another country is as much enjoyment as it is education. This bar is firmly planted in the center of Singapore’s New Bharu, a former school building converted into lifestyle complex. It’s literally a classroom and class was in session.
Bar Bon Funk itself is a listening room disguised as a cocktail bar, or maybe the other way around. Either way, it’s the kind of place that trades in mood more than mixology, though it has both in spades. Warm, oversized speakers flank the bar like sentinels, filling the space with a low, steady pulse. You don’t hear the music so much as you feel it settle into your bones.
This place? It’s all vibes. The soundtrack moves from deep cuts to curveballs that get heads in the room all goosenecking forward and back in unison. You recognize a few, discover a few more, and forget them all by the time you leave. What sticks is the atmosphere—that slow-dissolve memory of having been somewhere, not just gone somewhere.
The crowd is a cocktail in itself. There are the usual suspects: solo drinkers sipping something experimental; couples dressed for the date night; clutches of women laughing over martinis. But also—kids? Like, actual preteens, tagging along with stylish parents. Gen Z crate-diggers too, swapping notes on the titles. A few silver-haired audiophiles, nodding to the beat. Somehow, it all works. Bar Bon Funk isn’t a place to get plastered. It’s a place to take your time, appreciate the sound, sip something strange, and enjoy the company of the the familiar. A zero-ABV section of the menu backs that up—elegant and interesting drinks for people who are passing on the booze but have come here to feel high on the moment.
Me, on the other hand? I’d just walked off a barista competition win and was riding the glow of a cash prize and a giant novelty check. So I ordered the most expensive drink on the menu: 32% ABV, peaty, built with something called “Distilled Meadow Hay,” and garnished with a caramelized marshmallow skewered on a twig.
Was it good? Yeah. Balanced and experimental enough to merit the cost of entry. Was it great? Maybe. Honestly, I didn’t care. Because that wasn’t the point.
The drink was just a detail. The point was the place.
