The buzz: The newest arrival to The Green Connect building, in the happening Sukhumvit 31 neighborhood, Potion Bar puts its main focus on furniture and creative Thai-influenced cocktails. Here, the owners’ passions really come to the fore: one partner runs an import wallpaper business, Pinpina, while another is a furniture designer for the brand Cast. The space has been set up as if it’s a furniture showroom, only with a bar installed, and you can actually buy all the furniture to take home.

The décor: The bar keeps things relatively simple with an all-white room sporting unfinished paintwork and graphic print wallpaper from Pinpina. A black steel staircase in the middle adds a minor industrial touch to the place, while the furniture comes from Cast, ranging from a big low log table to aluminum stools and out-there plastic basket-like chairs. 

The music: Effortlessly hip offerings sourced from the owners’ iTunes library spanning sweet indie/electo-pop to psych-y dream pop.    

The crowd: People in their mid-to-late 20s working in the creative and design industries. 

The price: The cocktails here are all made with a base of Thai liquor (Sangsom, Mae Khong and Ma-Jai-dum, to name a few) and infused with herbs and fruit like pandanus and pomegranate. Try the simply named Tarn, where pomegranate-infused liquor is blended with palm juice (B270), or Sa Lim (maple-infused Mae Khong, jackfruit juice, pandanus juice, B250). For something sour opt for the Priew (vanilla syrup, lime juice, passion fruit juice, pineapple juice and Maa-Jai-dam Banana vodka, B220) or for something potent, the highly recommended Praw (smoked coconut juice, smoked regency, cinnamon and maple-infused Mae Khong, B270). Beers are Singha (B120), Heineken (B120) and Beerlao (B150). You can also try the home-infused liquor as a shot (B180) or order six in the Liqueur Flight (B980). As for food, there’s no permanent menu, only a selection of free Thai snacks. However, as the owners are into concept dining, they plan to host special dinner events from time to time, as already evidenced by the Croatian food served up at their official opening.

Why you’ll come back: To taste the whole list of creative cocktails and to lap up the cool but comfy atmosphere.

At the boutique hotel Nostalgia in heartland heaven Tiong Bahru, glam meets colonial in an intimate collection of 50 rooms, all kitted out with top amenities, out-of-the-norm furnishings and artwork. Fittingly, Potion—the hotel’s open-air restaurant—also offers dinners a taste of tradition mixed with today.

Chef Max has created an interesting Australian-fusion menu that updates classic dishes with a modern, Asian sensibility. The lightly-fried and heavily delicious crab cake for example was served with cucumber pickles, a lychee papaya salad and tom yum mayo. The yummy lamb chop served over risotto is soaked in a lemongrass marinade before grilling and the risotto is dabbed with a sweet soy dressing.

Don’t miss the very traditional soft-centered hot chocolate pudding with vanilla ice cream that offers nostalgia of the sweetest kind. Breakfast, lunch and hearty bar snacks are available as is a newly-launched Sunday brunch—all every bit as affordable as the dinner offerings.

The corner can get a little noisy from the street, but that makes it all more “heartland.” Besides, the soundtrack—whether from retro love songs on the good sound system or the live duo that plays on Friday and Saturday nights—and the sounds of ooh and ah from your fellow dining companions, make it all fade into the background.