At POP CITY x Pony, Jigger & Pony Group confidently rewrites Singapore’s cocktail script, trading speakeasy theatrics and hotel-lounge polish for warmth, comfort, and cocktails designed for lingering.
What was once Sugarhall — a perfectly decent cocktail pub hovering above Cecil Street — has now been reincarnated as POP CITY x Pony.
If the name is a bit of a mouthful, sounding like two brands stitched together at short notice, that’s because it is — a collaboration between the Jigger & Pony Group with House of Suntory. The new concept positions itself as a “cultural living room”, but before you roll your eyes at the marketing copy, know this: the place actually delivers.
This is not another whisper-dark speakeasy where you’re expected to genuflect before the bartender, nor is it one more swanky hotel lounge polished to the point of emotional distance. Instead, it feels like a living room belonging to someone wealthier than you, cooler than you, but generous enough to let you sprawl on their sofa with a drink in hand and no sense of hurry. It is a bar that wants you to stay. Not just drink. Stay.
The room does most of the persuading. Styled in Japanese mid-century modern — the sort of Japandi aesthetic that’s seeing a bit of a revival — it is warm without being precious, stylish without becoming stiff. You don’t really sit so much as recline, drape, or gently collapse onto cushioned sofas, while quietly admiring the carefully placed objects that suggest taste without screaming “interior designer”.
Conversation flows easily. Instagram, inevitably, follows.
What I like most is that POP CITY refuses to impose a single mood. Instead, it is divided into zones: a byōbu-backed main bar for those who want theatre; a communal tasting commons for social drinking; and a quieter after-hours salon for when the evening slows and voices drop. It is a rejection of the idea that a bar must be one thing only. Here you can chase energy or contemplation, without feeling as if you’re out of place.
That same sense of ease runs through the drinks. The menu is split into “POP” and “CITY” — a categorisation that sounds faintly pretentious until you realise how useful it is. POP cocktails are playful and expressive; CITY drinks are calmer, more architectural. Japanese ingredients — shiso, hojicha, yuzu, plum — appear as expected, but thankfully are used with restraint without the usual gimmickry.
Take for example the Pop City Sour, built around Hibiki Harmony, gently layered with plum and shiso. It is soft-spoken, elegant, and confident — much like the bar itself. The Harmony Old Fashioned uses the same whisky in the usually bourbon classic and also swaps out standard sugar for Okinawan brown sugar, the latter of which sound like a small tweak until you taste the added depth it brings.
But the real show-stealer is the HØJ1CHA Espresso Martini: indulgently creamy, delicately sweet, with a pleasing bitterness that stops it sliding into saccharine dessert territory.
The seasonal cocktails warrant your attention too. A Shiitake Mushroom Negroni arrives herbal, earthy, and agreeably bitter, accompanied by a mushroom-shaped white chocolate biscuit inspired by a much-loved Hokkaido cookie. It is playful, yes, but also properly balanced — which is the point.
And of course there’s a spirits list — because Suntory — that surprisingly offers whiskies from other houses as well.
What ultimately distinguishes POP CITY is its tone. The music is there, but never overwhelming. Service is informed and generous without being intrusive. The food — mochi cheese nuggets with miso curry sauce, uni croquettes, chicken karaage, even tonkotsu ramen — is comfortingly unfussy, reinforcing the idea that this is a place for repeat visits, not checklist bragging rights.
POP CITY x Pony feels somewhat radical in a cocktail city that has become very good at cocktail theatre. Where other bars are obsessed with performance — louder, darker, rarer, more exclusive — POP CITY chooses a subtler flex: warmth and familiarity. Here is proof that serious cocktail craft doesn’t need to hide behind secret closed doors or velvet drapes, and that the best nights out often happen in spaces that feel human.
A cultural living room? OK, fine. It’s one I’d happily spend an evening — or three — in.
Pop City x Pony
Address 19 Cecil St, Level 2, Singapore 049704 (Google Maps link)
Opening Hours 5.30pm to 12am Mondays to Saturdays; closed on Sundays
Website www.popcityxpony.com
Instagram @popcity.singapore
Facebook PopCity.Singapore
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