On Saturday, 31 October 2026, TIAO, the hutong bar at Mandarin Oriental Qianmen, Beijing, takes over BAR KAP at the House of Tan Yeok Nee on Penang Road from 8pm. The Beijing team, ranked No. 50 on Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026, is pouring four cocktails at S$28++ each, and one of them has spent two weeks resting in BAR KAP’s clay pots.
That makes for a handy Halloween Saturday plan: a ranked Asian bar team on your side of the border, with no flight to Beijing required, inside a national monument with more than a century of stories in its walls. BAR KAP calls the night The Fifth Era and bills it as its first-ever guest shift. A guest shift is bar-speak for a visiting team running someone else’s counter for a night.
Two Old Houses, One Counter
TIAO sits in Caochang Hutong, a lane more than 600 years old. A hutong is one of Beijing’s traditional residential alleyways, and during the Ming Dynasty this one supplied straw for the emperor’s horses. Today, boutiques, cafés and artisans share it with local homes. The bar’s Chinese name, Shi Tiao (十条), means “Alley Ten” after its original address, while the English name plays on 调, the character for mixing drinks, which is a tidy pun for a cocktail bar.
BAR KAP opened in May 2026 inside the House of Tan Yeok Nee, the last of Singapore’s Four Grand Mansions. Its regular menu walks through four eras of the house. Kapitan covers the Teochew merchant who built it and Station Master the railway years. Order marks its time as St Mary’s Home and later the Salvation Army, and Dynasty covers the house as it stands now. TIAO’s night slots in as an unofficial fifth chapter, which explains the title.
Both bars build their drinks around the streets outside their doors, and that shared habit makes this pairing feel less random than most cross-border collabs. One came out of a Ming-era lane that fed imperial horses. The other grew from a merchant who arrived from elsewhere and built his status in timber and carvings.
On Halloween night, those two histories meet over the same bar top.
Meet the Duo Behind the Bar
Head Bartender Matt Guo has nine years of bartending behind him. He started at hotel brands including St. Regis, Four Seasons and Conrad, then spent two years in the UK as Head Bartender at Manahatta. After that, he joined the opening team of The Pearl in the UK and moved to TIAO in January 2025, so he’s the person to ask if you want to compare British and Beijing drinking habits.
Bar & Beverage Manager Miranda Xu has worked in bars since 2016. Her CV runs from China Bar at Park Hyatt Beijing to Mei at Rosewood Beijing and the pre-opening of Electric Circus at The Shanghai EDITION. She led the launch of MO Bar at Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing, Beijing, before joining TIAO’s pre-opening team in 2024, which means she has been shaping the bar since before its doors opened.
The Drink to Screenshot
St. Peter’s Basilica is the one to order, and it’s the strongest reason to book at all. Gin, rosso vermouth, oloroso sherry, Fernet-Branca, chamomile and strawberry add up to a bittersweet, spirit-forward drink. It has also spent two weeks clay-aged at BAR KAP, so the glass you get on Penang Road carries a bit of the Singapore house in it. That’s the detail worth sending to the group chat!
Clay ageing is BAR KAP’s signature trick. The bar matures cocktails in traditional purple clay vessels, which it says softens texture and refines flavour. It bills itself as the first bar in Singapore to revive the practice, which it traces back 8,000 years, and the vessels are kept in The Chamber, a private room styled as a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) apothecary.
Golden Echo is the second pick. Cognac and Champagne meet Earl Grey, caramel, vetiver, citrus and peach, so it puts bubbles in your glass for the same S$28++ as everything else, which feels like the quiet value play of the night.
Almond Tofu mixes rum, amaretto, passionfruit purée, lemon and oat. It’s the pick for anyone who orders dessert drinks without apology. Dress Code blends gin, fig leaf, lemon verbena, parsley and peach into the greenest drink on the list. Start there, then work up to the Basilica.
Is S$28++ a Fair Price?
On Singapore menus, the two plus signs mean service charge and GST get added to the S$28 at the end.
Book ahead rather than gambling on a walk-in.
🗓️ Date: Saturday, 31 October 2026
⏰ Time: 8pm till late
📍 Location: BAR KAP, House of Tan Yeok Nee, 101 Penang Road, Singapore 238466
🍸 Price: S$28++ per cocktail
🏺 Clay-aged pour: St. Peter’s Basilica, aged two weeks at BAR KAP
🎟️ Reservations: Via BAR KAP’s TableCheck page
If your Halloween plans still look empty after a scroll through our things to do in Singapore this October 2026, this is a rare chance to drink a Beijing alley’s stories inside a Singapore mansion without leaving the island. Grab a table for The Fifth Era through BAR KAP’s TableCheck reservations page, order the Basilica first, and toast two very old houses on a very spooky night!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of BAR KAP.
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