Standing Bar Near Me in Raffles Place: Sushi to Sumi's Chairless Lunch Counter

At lunch, Sushi to Sumi on the second floor of the PLUS building at 20 Cecil Street, #02-01, Singapore 049705, has no seats at all. You stand at the counter, eat eight pieces of nigiri, a piece of charcoal-grilled seafood and a bowl of miso soup for S$42, and walk back to the office within 30 to 45 minutes. For anyone in Raffles Place hunting for a standing bar near me at noon, this is the one counter where standing is the house rule rather than a lack of space.

Most sushi bars start with a chef and then go looking for fish. Sushi to Sumi was built the other way round. It is backed by Araya Shouten, a Japanese fishmonger founded by Araya-san after years inside Japan's seafood trade, with sourcing lines that run past Tokyo's Toyosu Market all the way to Hokkaido. The restaurant opened in 2024 as a way to put that supply chain directly onto a counter in the CBD.

The name, written 鮨と炭, simply means sushi and charcoal, the two things the kitchen does. Chef Hashimoto Yasuo runs the counter and decides what each fish becomes: nigiri if it is perfect raw, the binchotan grill if it wants fire. The fishmonger's habit of respecting the whole fish shows up on the plate. The kama, or collar, is grilled instead of thrown away, and the bones become that day's miso soup.

The restaurant says no other sushi bar in Singapore runs a stand-only counter, and it frames the format as a return to how sushi began: fast, everyday food eaten on your feet, the way Tokyo office workers have lunched for generations. There is no table to wait for and no two-hour pacing. You step up, order a set, and the chef works straight across the counter while the charcoal smokes behind him.

The format is aimed squarely at the CBD office crowd, and the restaurant openly courts solo diners, saying eating alone is the norm here rather than the exception. Dinner flips the format: the lights drop, the charcoal does more of the work and there are seats. It is the same counter and the same fish, at an evening pace that suits working slowly through seasonal nigiri, a grilled fish you smelled at lunch and one good dessert.

Four lunch sets are listed on the menu. Ume at S$42 brings eight pieces including akami, plus grilled seafood and miso soup. Take at S$58 has ten pieces with chutoro. Matsu at S$88 runs to twelve pieces with uni and chutoro. Miyabi at S$111 is the big one: seventeen pieces covering uni, otoro, chutoro and akami. The menu notes that the exact sushi changes with the course and the day.

Dinner courses all open with chawanmushi. Ume costs S$50 with eight pieces including chutoro, Take S$80 with ten pieces including uni and torotaku, and Matsu S$120 with twelve pieces including uni, otoro and a mini-don. Kiwami at S$180 adds premium sushi and grilled abalone with uni. GST and a 10% service charge are added to every price on the menu, so budget for that on the bill.

An honest pick: the S$42 Ume lunch is the best value on the menu, because you get the grill and the soup that make this place different, and the akami is reason enough to come. Miyabi at S$111 is a lot of fish to eat standing up in under 45 minutes. If you want otoro and uni at a slower pace, book the dinner Matsu instead and sit down for it.

Lunch runs from 11am to 2pm and dinner from 6pm to 10pm, Monday to Saturday. The restaurant is closed on Sunday. Since the whole lunch is designed to take 30 to 45 minutes, arriving right at 11am or after 1:15pm keeps you clear of the noon office rush.

The menu page also advertises a one-hour free-flow sushi dinner at S$100 plus GST and service, Monday to Friday, in slots at 5pm, 6pm and 7pm. It starts with the eight-piece Ume set, adds two premium pieces such as uni or wagyu, and then refills hamachi, tai, scallop, salmon and kanpyo rolls for the hour, with one drink included. It is limited to 20 people a day and booked by WhatsApp only, with no walk-ins.

If the counter is full at 12:30pm, do not hover for more than ten minutes, because a CBD lunch hour cannot absorb a long wait. Walk five minutes to Lau Pa Sat at 18 Raffles Quay instead, the national monument hawker market that stays open 24 hours, and come back for the evening grill when the after-work crowd sits down.

The PLUS building sits on Cecil Street within walking distance of Raffles Place MRT, and the restaurant is one floor up from street level. After lunch, cut through to Lau Pa Sat on Raffles Quay, a national monument with more than 80 stalls and its own Satay Street. From there the Marina Bay waterfront is a short walk east, which makes a sushi dinner here an easy start to a night out in the CBD.

Address: 20 Cecil Street, PLUS #02-01, Singapore 049705. Hours: lunch 11am to 2pm and dinner 6pm to 10pm, Monday to Saturday, closed Sunday. Lunch is standing only and dinner is seated. Prices are in Singapore dollars before GST and the 10% service charge. The short drinks list includes sake, highballs, lemon sour, umeshu and both barley and sweet potato shochu.

Solo diners are welcome at both services, and the counter is close enough that you can ask the chef why a fish went to the grill instead of the rice. The à la carte list starts from S$4 a piece for nigiri and S$28 for a six-slice premium sashimi plate, which is useful if you only want a few pieces with a drink after work rather than a full course.