Tanjong Pagar Hot Chocolate for S$7.50: Café Mary Grace

Café Mary Grace at 52 Tras Street in Tanjong Pagar serves its hot chocolate, made with premium Belgian cocoa, for S$7.50. The café opens Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 9:30pm, with last orders at 9pm, and it is closed on Monday. Walk-ins are welcome on both weekdays and weekends. When the late-October inter-monsoon storms roll in during the afternoon, a cup here with an ensaymada is one of the most comforting ways to wait out the rain in the CBD.

Mary Grace began in a home kitchen in the Philippines. On the brand's own timeline, the founder joined her first bazaar in 1994 with her ensaymadas and cheese rolls, opened her first little store in 2002, and opened her first café in 2006, after eleven kiosks. The Singapore site says the business has grown to more than 140 cafés and kiosks across the Philippines, and Tras Street is its international debut.

The café opened on 13 March 2026, according to CNA Lifestyle, after a sold-out pop-up sale. In the brand's story, the founder describes the perfect pairing at her first café as Mary Grace Hot Chocolate with her signature ensaymada and cheese rolls. That is still the order to come for. The café has since added dinner service and a new Ube Series menu, but the chocolate and bread remain the heart of it.

The story behind the bread is personal. The founder writes that she decorated cakes for her children's birthdays in 1983, then took a 12-month baking course in the United States in 1986 to sharpen her skills. Back home, she worked on her own formula for ensaymada, a local delicacy, through many failed attempts and Sunday-lunch taste tests with her family, until her parents approved. The ensaymada and cheese rolls she sold at that first bazaar in 1994 are still the signatures today.

The menu describes the hot chocolate as perfect as a dip for the bakes or as a dessert in a cup, and dipping is the right way to use it. Tear off a piece of ensaymada, which the café describes as a fluffy brioche made with premium butter and crowned with aged Queso de Bola, Edam cheese from Holland, and dunk it. The salt in the cheese plays against the chocolate. The cheese roll, a soft roll with a cheese filling, works the same way.

The hot chocolate is only available for dine-in and takeaway at the café, not for delivery. For a light snack, order one hot chocolate and one ensaymada per person. If you are a group, share a cheese roll too, and order an extra cup rather than a second round of bread, which is filling. Anyone who finds the drink rich can let it cool slightly, which makes it better for dipping.

For Filipino visitors and the many Filipinos who live in Singapore, the appeal is familiarity: reviews on the café's own site describe the cheese rolls and ensaymadas as tasting as good as the ones they have loved for decades in Manila. For everyone else, the pairing of a salty-sweet bun with a thick chocolate is the discovery. The Straits Times included the café in a round-up of new Singapore cafés that stand out, and Time Out covered its arrival after the pop-up sold out.

The café's rule is simple: walk-ins are welcome, and there are a limited number of tables for reservations, booked only through the online link on the website. If you are coming at a busy weekend brunch time, reserve. Takeaway works on a first-come, first-served basis while stocks last, so popular bakes can sell out later in the day. Same-day pick-up of bakes can also be ordered online.

The Singapore online shop lists the Mary Grace Ensaymada at S$31.50 and the Cheese Rolls at S$24.50, sold for delivery and pick-up, and it offers S$5 delivery on pre-orders above S$120. Pre-orders need at least three days. That makes it easy to take the bread home, but the hot chocolate itself has to be had at Tras Street. No phone number is published; the café takes questions by email at hello@marygracecafe.sg.

The 9am opening makes it a good breakfast stop before work in the CBD, and the café's dinner hours, until 9:30pm, make it a dessert stop after a meal on Tras Street or Tanjong Pagar Road. Remember that it is closed on Mondays. In the inter-monsoon season, storms tend to arrive in the afternoon, so a morning visit is the easier way to stay dry.

An honest suggestion: do not over-order bread. The ensaymada is rich, with butter and cheese, and with a thick hot chocolate one is enough for most people. If you want to try more of the range, take a box home for breakfast the next day. If you are coming for dinner, look at the café menu on the website first, since it now covers more than bakes and drinks.

Tras Street is about five minutes on foot from Tanjong Pagar MRT station on the East-West line. Afterward, walk up to Duxton Hill, a short lane of restored shophouses with bars and restaurants, and continue to Pinnacle@Duxton, the public housing towers whose 50th-floor skybridge has a city view for visitors who buy an access pass.

If the weather is fine, keep walking toward Ann Siang Hill and Club Street, where the shophouses rise up the slope toward Chinatown. On a rainy day, the shophouse five-foot ways give some cover between stops. Because the café opens at 9am, it also works as a breakfast meeting place before a walk through the neighbourhood.

Address: Café Mary Grace, 52 Tras Street, Singapore 078991. Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 9:30pm, last order 9pm; closed Monday. Dine-in: walk-ins welcome, limited reservations by online link only. Prices: Mary Grace Hot Chocolate S$7.50 (dine-in and takeaway at the café only); online shop Ensaymada S$31.50, Cheese Rolls S$24.50; S$5 delivery for pre-orders above S$120. No phone number is published; email hello@marygracecafe.sg. Nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar. Ask the Karpo APP for a Tanjong Pagar dinner nearby.