Orh Gao Taproom: Singapore Gastropub, Kopi and Craft Beer

Orh Gao Taproom pours craft beer from 5pm at Serene Centre, 10 Jalan Serene, #01-06, a short walk from the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and its har cheong gai, shrimp paste fried chicken wings, costs S$15. By day the same unit runs as Peh Gao Coffeeshop, serving kaya toast and kopi until 3.30pm. Then the lights drop, fourteen taps take over, and the menu turns into the kind of spicy Asian bar food that goes with a fifth beer.

Orh Gao built a following as a neighbourhood craft beer bar at Serene Centre before it shut. HungryGoWhere's 2026 openings round-up says the bar closed in mid-2025 and has since reopened with an all-new daytime concept, and Honeycombers listed the relaunch among its new bars in April 2026. The two names are a pair of jokes in Singapore coffeeshop slang: orh gao is a very dark, strong black, and peh gao is the white version with lots of milk.

The daytime menu carries the line Est. 2026, and the group now has a second outlet, New Bahru at 58 Kim Yan Road, #02-02, inside the Factory Block. This article covers the original Serene Centre shop, which the website calls the Botanic Gardens outlet.

The website promises 14 rotating craft beers on tap, always changing, and says the team occasionally brings in pours you will not find anywhere else in Singapore. There is no fixed beer list to memorise; Honeycombers advises asking the staff for a recommendation because the line-up rotates weekly, and it put beers from S$10 and cocktails from S$18. Non-drinkers get Tiny But Mighty, a Garage Project non-alcoholic hazy IPA under 0.5% ABV, at S$10, plus a sparkling yuzu at S$8 and homemade iced lemon tea at S$7.

The bar also uses its space for events, parties, kitchen takeovers and brewery collaborations, which its website describes as any good excuse to bring people together over food and beer.

The Serene Centre night menu, dated 7 October 2026, is split by how many people you are feeding. Small shares include the har cheong gai made with the house shrimp paste on marinated mid wings at S$15, xiao xiao yu, fried whitebait with sambal belachan and curry leaves at S$13, roasted pork belly with housemade pickles at S$15, lemongrass pork patties at S$14, and crunchy chicken cartilage with hot chilli sauce at S$12.

The vegetarian corner is not an afterthought. Gao vinegar fries come dressed with Chinkiang black vinegar, chilli powder and curry leaves for S$13, shimeji fritters with mala seasoning are S$11, and the tofu dip with chips, a tofu hummus with mala sauce and wonton chips, is S$11. Cauliflower with butternut sauce, calamansi yoghurt and cashew is S$13.

The big shares are what turn a beer stop into dinner. The OG beef rendang uses Black Angus beef cheek with fried shallots and almond slivers for S$22. Handsome Ribs are pan-fried beef intercostal ribs with an Asian chimichurri and calamansi at S$21, char siu baby back ribs with sesame are also S$21, and sotong bakar, fresh local squid with sambal and lime, is S$19. The OG rempah fried chicken uses boneless thighs and comes with sambal butter and traditional toast for S$15.

Rice dishes stand in for a main: crab fried rice with real crab chunks and hae bee hiam butter is S$19, kra pow mee tai mak with Thai basil chicken and an onsen egg is S$15, and curry mussels are S$21. Plain jasmine rice is S$2 and coconut rice S$3. Dessert is a single Vietnamese flan with kopi o and crushed ice for S$8. Prices exclude GST and service charge.

The menu marks vegetarian dishes with a V and spicy ones with an S, and several dishes carry both, so ask before you order three chilli dishes in a row. A good pattern for two people is one small share, one vegetable plate and one big share, with rice on the side. The rempah fried chicken comes with toast to mop up the sambal butter, and the menu offers two more toasts for S$2 if one round is not enough.

Most of the cooking leans Singaporean and Southeast Asian rather than British, so think of it as a beer bar that happens to have a serious kitchen, not a pub serving fish and chips. That is also why the rotating taps matter: the point is to match whatever is pouring that week with belachan, rempah and black vinegar.

Come before 3.30pm and the shop is a coffeeshop. The day menu opens at 8am, with kaya butter toast at S$2.80, kopi from S$3.60 and two soft-boiled eggs at S$2.20. The website says the kaya is made in-house every day and the coffee is ground to order. Mains run from 9.30am to 2pm, including beef pho from S$14, chilli pan mee at S$12 and a nasi lemak with beef rendang at S$17, so the rendang that anchors the night menu also turns up at lunch. Day service is walk-in only.

Serene Centre is a small, older mall in the Bukit Timah and Holland Road area, close to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which became Singapore's first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015. Botanic Gardens MRT station, on the Circle and Downtown lines, sits at the gardens' northern edge. A late-afternoon walk through the gardens, then a 5pm first pour, is the obvious plan, or reverse it on a weekend morning with kaya toast before the gardens get busy.

Address: Orh Gao Taproom and Peh Gao Coffeeshop, Serene Centre, 10 Jalan Serene, #01-06, Singapore 258748. Hours from the website: closed on Mondays; Peh Gao runs from 8am to 3.30pm and Orh Gao from 5pm until late.

Booking: the website takes reservations for Orh Gao at this outlet through Chope, and the daytime coffeeshop is walk-in only. Money: with beers from S$10 according to Honeycombers, one beer plus the wings and the rendang comes to about S$47 before GST and service. Who it suits: beer drinkers who want a changing tap list and food with chilli in it, and Botanic Gardens visitors looking for an early evening stop. Who it does not suit: anyone wanting a classic British pub menu of pies and roasts, or a Monday night out.