Tiong Bahru: Singapore's coolest district

A week-day morning in downtown Singapore and crowds of besuited men and women march purposefully into gleaming skyscrapers and imposing colonial buildings. Taxis, cars and buses stream past in an orderly hurry. Honking horns, engine sounds and chirps, beeps and trills from pedestrian crossings infuse the steamy air. This is the Singapore we know. Hustle and bustle and boundless striving have transformed a tropical island half the size of Zanzibar into one of the world's richest countries.

But a 10-minute cab ride from the CBD, just west of Chinatown, you'll find a slice of Singapore that reveals the city-state in new, more leisurely light. Laid-back and low-rise, Tiong Bahru usually lies under the tourist radar, but it's one of Singapore's most characterful neighbourhoods, a favourite hang-out of trend-setting locals and expats (and home to regular Singaporean families, young and old).

Built between the 1930s and 50s, comprising grid-like streets of whitewashed, three-storey, spiral-staircased apartments, this was the country's first public housing project.

Wealthy businessmen would also shelter their mistresses here (it was dubbed Mei Ren Wuo – "den of beauties" in Chinese). In recent years, gentrification has arrived, with hip new businesses springing up beside wizened veterans on streets named after early Chinese-Singaporean pioneers. My guide, Dino, and I breakfast at the slick Tiong Bahru Bakery.

Its outdoor tables are all occupied by chatting friends, so we head inside – receiving a blast of airconditioning – and find ourselves transfixed by the pastries, quiches and sweet treats on display. The bakery's founder, Gontran Cherrier, is a fourth-generation Parisian baker, and the kouign-amann (sugary, buttery Breton cake) I munch here is as good as any I've had in France. Etched with "latte art", the flat white is rather good, too (coffee is sourced from Common Man Roasters, a joint Australian-Singaporean enterprise that's behind another Tiong Bahru favourite, the brunch-tastic Forty Hands).

With its steamy humidity causing many mere mortals to start sweating in 60 seconds, Singapore isn't exactly a stroller's paradise, but Tiong Bahru is great for sauntering around. Window-shoppers left cold by the huge malls of Orchard Road may find more to their liking in the independent boutiques of Yong Siak Street.

You can browse cutting-edge fashion and design, from home and abroad, at Nana & Bird, the brainchild of friends and self-confessed shopaholics, Georgina Koh and Tan Chiew Ling. It's next door to cupcake specialist Plain Vanilla, and Strangelets, where you'll find everything from retro Magno wooden radios to polar bear-shaped bookshelves. Fronted by potted plants, Woods in the Books and BooksActually lure bibliophiles.