Blue is said to be calming for the eyes. Now imagine a retro-style restaurant bar fully decked out in aqua blue, that offers you a fine dining experience combined with top-quality live entertainment.

Overlooking the bustling Central Fountain Square at Clarke Quay, Aquanova presents an intimate chic setting with expansive space for multiple purposes: dining, drinking and even dancing.

This dual-concept lifestyle venue is managed by LifeBranz, the same entertainment management group that established popular nightspots Rebel, Zirca, and most recently Coco.

Perfect chill-out spot

Aquanova has a 7,000 square foot area with 300 seats indoor, the design inspired by fluid organic curves and sleek lines. If fresh air is best for you, enjoy the breeze in one of the 100 al fresco seats outside and watch the world go by while still listening to the wonderful music spilling from inside.

With a long Happy Hour period from 12 noon – 9:30pm, you can sit around all day sipping on beer or some of their speciality cocktails. Aquanova also features a freeform island bar that sets the stage for its bartenders to showcase their flair and skill.

Contemporary Asian cuisine

You’d be familiar with the usual bar serving drinks and snacks, but what separates this cosy haunt from the rest is the presence of restaurant-quality food, available from opening till 9.30pm.

Aquanova’s exquisite menu boasts of delectable Asian-inspired dishes with a novel touch. UrbanWire tried a few of these tasty-sounding fare and our appetites were definitely excited upon seeing the gorgeous platters.

Lobster Cappuccino ($16)

Drink or soup? This dish is a thick and rich lobster bisque topped with milk froth, which is what gives the appetizer its name. What makes this special is the touch of brandy included in the mix. Both sweet and savoury, this bowl of orange-brown goodness generously filled with lobster bits is a must-try novelty.

Laksa Seafood Skewer ($34)

Seafood-lovers are definitely in for a treat with this dish because you get huge chunks of pan-fried tiger prawns, succulent dory fillets and chewy scallops. There are also crunchy mixed greens on a stick, topped with spoonfuls of creamy laksa sauce and served with decoratively green pesto mash on the side. Enough said. If all that can’t satisfy your hunger, we don’t know what will.

Pandan Cotta ($12)

A delicious pun on Panna Cotta, this Italian dessert is basically cooked cream, imbued with the familiar Asian taste of pandan. The dish has a caramel sauce base and is complemented by little cubes of chin chow jelly. Beautifully decorated with gooseberry fruit and pandan leaves, the dessert is served in a cocktail glass. We found this a little too sweet for our liking, but if you have an extremely sweet tooth, this is for you.

Sky ($15)

Photos courtesy of Sixth Sense Communications & Samuel Ow from Klix Photography.

The bar serves an array of unique jelly cocktails. One of their signatures, Sky, combines sweet strawberry jelly, vodka, blue curaçao, and lemonade. Simple, refreshing and delish, this vibrant eye-catching delight contained just the right amount of sweetness and tanginess to make us crave a second glass.

In all, the food menu in Aquanova is definitely unique, presenting comforting and familiar flavours masterfully reinvented to suit our modern tastes. Other special dishes available include the Asian Crab Cakes, Baked Saffron Seafood Rice, and Stuffed Tomato Chinoise. What’s not to like about that?

Stellar live music

Taking centre stage every night from 10.30pm onwards is resident band John Molina & Krueger featuring Gerl, Patrick and Alia D, one of the most familiar names in the Singapore live entertainment scene. John Molina boasts a career that spans two decades and is still going strong today, having performed contemporary rock and pop favourites all over, including Rouge and Thumper. Not many performers in the local & regional scene can match what he has achieved over the years.

The JJ Live (pronounced as ‘double J’) will entertain audiences earlier in the evening (7 to 10pm) that want to sit around enjoying dinner or sipping on a glass of refreshing beer, which consists of your usual suspects: Heineken, Tiger, Erdinger and Kirin.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one spot where you can dine and spend your whole night there, Aquanova is the nightspot for you, with its cosy interior and quality live entertainment. Come here at noon, in the evening, or even at midnight, and there’ll always be something for you.

Address: Block C, #01-03, Clarke Quay
Telephone Number: 6305 6733
Opening hours:

  • Sunday & Monday (12 pm – 2 am)
  • Tuesday to Thursday (12 pm – 3 am)
  • Friday, Saturday, and eve of Public Holidays (12 pm – 4 am)

Note:

  • Happy hours: 12 pm – 9:30 pm
  • Price rating (for a main course): $21 – $40
  • Rating: ★★★★✩