Ask any Singaporean where to find the best hawker centres in Singapore and they’ll all give you a different answer. Hawker centres – aka food courts – are the best spots to try various street food at reasonable prices.
There’s hundreds of them all over the city, but we’ve picked the seven best you need to try. Follow this guide to live like a local and feast on all the best dishes in the city.
Best Hawker Centres In Singapore
How do these rankings work?
1. Maxwell Food Centre – Central
Here, you’ll find local foods like chicken rice by Tian Tian Chicken Rice (#01-10/11)—which was recommended by the Michelin Guide’s Bib Gourmand—as well as Eurasian meals like shepherd’s pie and devil’s curry (spicy curry flavoured with candlenuts and vinegar) by Popo & Nana’s Delights (#01-70).
2. Tiong Bahru Market – South
Tiong Bahru Market is located in a heritage neighbourhood of Art Deco style apartments and great eats. Get your share of local delights like delicious wanton mee (egg noodles with dumplings) and chwee kueh (steamed rice cakes topped with preserved radish), and don’t miss the famous roasted pork buns at Tiong Bahru Pau.
3. Chomp Chomp – East
In the Serangoon Gardens neighbourhood? Make Chomp Chomp your pit stop for mouthwatering grub before you explore Coney Island or Seletar Aerospace Park. This market’s satay bee hoon (thin rice noodles in satay sauce) and Hokkien mee (fried prawn noodles) are top sellers. Wash your meal down with sugar cane juice!
4. Old Airport Road Food Centre – East
Dating back to the 1970s, this is one of the most popular hawker centres in Singapore thanks to a huge variety of stalls. It’s also home to some of the best soya beancurd stalls in the city. Dig into wanton mee, lor mee and char kway teow,  with the hawkers each serving up their own delectable versions of these local staples.
5. Amoy Street Food Centre – Central
Amoy Street Food Centre is a hotspot for both traditional hawkers and modern fusion fare at affordable prices. As well as traditional hawker stalls selling classics like fish porridge (#02-100) and lor mee (#02-79)— yellow noodles in a thick, savoury gravy—you may also want to try some of the modern dishes sold here.
A Noodle Story (#01-139) serves up a Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded noodle dish that mixes Japanese ramen with prawns, roast meat and dumplings.
6. La Pa Sat – Central
This place is huge, with seating for 2,500 people. Home to local favourites and international cuisines like North Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese, Lau Pa Sat is the go-to location for good hawker fare in the Central Business District. It’s one of the oldest hawker centres in Singapore and is still hugely popular.
P.S. Singapore’s famous Satay Street runs parallel to Lau Pa Sat, where Stalls 7 and 8 sell the best satay chicken skewers in town.
7. Golden Mile Food Centre – East
Golden Mile Food Centre’s two storeys of stalls specialise in good sup tulang (mutton bone stewed in gravy), Peranakan (Chinese and Indonesian/Malay origin) fare, Ah-Balling (glutinous riceballs with peanut, sesame or red bean filling, in a peanut soup). It’s also close to hip cafes and bars that you can hit up afterwards.
