WINE & DINE
Singapore’s Gourmet District Marina Bay Sands is the Lion City’s newest foodie enclave showcasing Michelin star chefs from all over. Text & Photos: Gavin Nazareth
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t looms large over us as our taxi navigates its way down Singapore’s East Coast Parkway, shimmering in the sunlight like a giant spaceship atop a gantry. Close-up, in its driveway, Marina Bay Sands, the newest addition to island country’s skyline, is even more overwhelming, physically. Numerically too, it defies logic and boggles the mind. With its price tag of US$5 billion, it has dethroned previous title-holder, Emirates Palace Hotel in 42 BEYOND DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011
Abu Dhabi at US3$.3 billion, as the most expensive hotel to build. Its footprint spans 10 million square feet of prime real estate at the mouth of the Singapore River. Three towers, based on a deck of cards according to resort’s creator Boston-based architect Moshe Safdie, soar 55-storeys skyward, housing the 2,561 rooms, including 18 different room types and 230 luxury suites; for the well-heeled, the price-tag of the palatial Chairman Suite is loose change
at US$14,444 per night and includes four bedrooms, two living rooms, steam and sauna facilities, a games room, bar, media room and a team of butlers. Spanning the top of the three towers is the Sands SkyPark, and what gives this mixed-use integrated resort, its eyepopping silhouette. At 1.2 hectares, this striking architectural sculpture is longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall and large enough to park four-and-a-half A380 jumbo jets, or three football fields; and