At Bartenders of Pony, Uno Jang trades Jigger & Pony’s trademark polish for something rarer in Singapore’s cocktail scene — a bar that feels gloriously, deliberately alive.
There are bars that arrive fully formed, polished to a mirror sheen, every coaster aligned with almost military precision. Then there is BOP, or Bartenders of Pony.
It is, by any reasonable editorial standard, a dreadful name. Acronyms are, of course, rife in K-pop culture from where the bar draws inspiration for its name. However, it also does make it sound less of a drinking venue and more like some minor administrative department in a Singapore statutory board.
But where BOP lacks in linguistic elegance, it makes up for with something far rarer in Singapore’s cocktail scene: looseness. Not sloppiness, mind you — this is still very much a Jigger & Pony Group production — but a deliberate, carefully-engineered relaxing of the group’s usual immaculate composure.
For over a decade, Jigger & Pony’s bars — from the flagship to Gibson and Live Twice — have been paragons of what one might call high-functioning hospitality: precise, choreographed, and relentlessly on point.
BOP is something else entirely.
Conceived by the group’s creative director Uno Jang as his most personal project to date, the bar pivots away from performance and toward participation. At BOP, you are not being hosted so much as absorbed. The room itself — a shophouse carved into multiple zones — encourages this drift. Energy builds at the front bar, spills into music-led communal areas, and eventually softens into quieter corners deeper inside.
BOP carefully avoids the trap of your typical Asian-inspired bar; you know, the ones that treat culture like a decorative garnish — a bit of yuzu here, a dash of curry powder there, all served with the solemnity of a TED Talk.
Instead, it leans into the mechanics of how Koreans actually drink: socially, noisily, and with very little regard for neat categorisation.
This manifests most clearly in the menu. The cocktails are technically sharp — you’d expect nothing less — but they are framed as experiences rather than artefacts.
The Iced Somaek, for instance, turns Korea’s ubiquitous somaek pairing into a playful construction involving shaved “snow” ice made from soju, coming out looking wholly like someone spilled bingsoo on your beer. The BOP Martini with its makgeolli vermouth and soy-pickled olive? It manages to be both conceptually rigorous and oddly familiar.
And then there’s Dalgona Iced Coffee, which takes that once viral coffee beverage and reimagines it as an Espresso Martini, because why not? It is clever, yes, but more importantly, it is fun — a word too often treated as vulgar in serious cocktail circles.
Then there is the food. Oh, the food. Here the food is not an afterthought. This is not “elevated bar bites”. It is proper food, designed to keep pace with alcohol rather than politely accompany it. Developed with Chef Jason Oh — who some may remember as a Black Spoon from Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars — the menu embraces the full-throttle flavour profile of Korean cuisine: spicy, sweet, salty, sour, and unapologetically punchy.
The Crispy Fried Chicken arrives as it should — crisp, aggressively seasoned, and clearly designed to lubricate further drinking. The Tuna Gimbap takes the classic Korean rice roll and garnishes it with sashimi-grade tuna. Love your banchan? The Cucumber & Squid Muchim — think crisp cucumber, crunchy radish, and tender squid — is a must-order. The signature Bossam, with its delicious fall-apart tender pork belly, rivals those of any hansikjib along the Tanjong Pagar Road stretch (best known as Singapore’s Korea Town) just a stone’s throw away.
What makes BOP genuinely interesting is that beneath its apparent casualness lies the same obsessive, almost neurotic, attention to detail that defines the Jigger & Pony empire. Service feels warm but not performative. The room feels alive but not unruly. The drinks arrive with consistency, even as the night edges toward chaos.
In other words, this is controlled spontaneity. The hospitality equivalent of jazz.
BOP opens at a moment when Singapore’s cocktail scene, for all its global acclaim, risks becoming a little too self-aware. Too polished. Too perfect.
These Bartenders of Pony disrupts that trajectory.
It introduces a different kind of luxury — not the luxury of precision, but the luxury of permission. Permission to linger, to be slightly loud, to order another round because the table isn’t done talking yet.
BOP also broadens the definition of what a “serious” cocktail bar can be. Not every drink needs a backstory longer than a tearful Korean drama. Not every space needs to feel like a temple.
Yes, the name is unfortunate. One suspects it will be endlessly explained, abbreviated, and grudgingly apologised for.
But BOP is, despite itself, one of the more compelling bar openings in Singapore this year. It takes the formidable technical backbone of Jigger & Pony and loosens the collar, swaps tasting notes for laughter, and reminds us that drinking — at its best — is a social act, not a scholarly one.
BOP (Bartenders of Pony)
Address 76 Tras St, Singapore 079015 (Google Maps link)
Opening Hours 6pm to 1am Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays; 6pm to 2am Fridays and Saturdays; closed on Mondays
Tel (65) 8985 5876
Web bartendersofpony.com
Instagram @bop_bartendersofpony
Reservations book here
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