8 Best Indian Restaurants in Singapore (2026) — Every Michelin Pick From the New Guide, Plus the Banana-Leaf Classics

The MICHELIN Guide Singapore 2026, released on 4 August, confirmed Thevar at Two Stars — putting Chef Mano Thevar's restaurant in the same bracket as Cloudstreet, Meta and Saint Pierre, and making it comfortably the most decorated Indian kitchen in the country. The cooking is Indian at its root but built with European technique and a strong pull from the Malay Peninsula; the Chettinad chicken roti — a fluffy flatbread stuffed with slow-cooked, heavily spiced chicken — is the dish everyone tells you to order, and they're right. Two menus: the THEVAR EXPERIENCE MENU at $298++ per guest, and a shorter THEVAR EXECUTIVE MENU at $228++, available at lunch only. Lunch runs Friday and Saturday, dinner Monday to Saturday, and the restaurant asks you to allow 2.5 hours. 16 Mohamed Sultan Road, Singapore 238965 — note it moved here, so check your booking address. Reservations on +65 9750 8275 or reservations@thevar.sg. BEST FOR: a milestone dinner, or anyone who wants to see how far modern Indian cooking has come.

Open since 1969 and a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide, Muthu's is where you go when you want fish head curry with an edge. The gravy is noticeably spicier than the Singapore norm and cut through with tamarind, and the fish head is $32++ with a choice of protein — sea bream, sea bass or red snapper — which is a courtesy most rivals don't extend. Around it, the menu holds up on its own: Masala Chicken $16++, Masala Prawns $17++, and the Chukka Varuval $17++, boneless chicken stir-fried with onions in a fierce house chilli paste. The naans get quietly high praise, particularly the cheese one. The flagship is 138 Race Course Road #01-01, Singapore 218591, open daily 10.30am to 10.30pm — this is the outlet the Bib Gourmand is attached to. The brand has run other outlets over the years and listings for them conflict, so call ahead if you're heading anywhere other than Race Course Road. BEST FOR: the sharpest, spiciest fish head curry of the three big names.

If Muthu's is the Bib Gourmand version, Apolo is the historical one. Open on Race Course Road since 1974 and now past 50 years, it's the restaurant most often credited with establishing fish head curry as a Singapore dish rather than an import — a South Indian gravy built around a fish head that Chinese and Malay diners took to as readily as Indian ones. The signature arrives in an ornate silver tureen and is still the reason most people come, but the wider menu is genuinely strong: flower crab, mutton briyani, the four-piece assorted naan platter, tandoori chicken, and a full vegetarian meal served the traditional way on banana leaf. 54 Race Course Road, Singapore 218564, open daily 10.30am to 10.30pm — the long hours make it one of the easier Little India institutions to fit into a plan. +65 6293 8682. BEST FOR: the original, in the room where it happened — and the widest non-curry menu of the classics.

Samy's is the one people get sentimental about, and the setting is most of the reason: a high-ceilinged colonial-era block at Dempsey with ceiling fans instead of aggressive air-conditioning, where the food comes on banana leaf and the rice keeps arriving. Family-run since the 1950s and now serving a third generation of regulars, it's built its name on an award-winning fish head curry — running roughly $25 to $35+ depending on whether you order small, medium or large — alongside masala chicken, Mysore mutton and fish cutlets. Two sittings a day and one firm rule to plan around: it's closed every Tuesday. Blk 25 Dempsey Road, Singapore 249670; lunch 11am–3pm, dinner 6pm–10pm. +65 6472 2080. Worth knowing that Dempsey has almost no MRT access, so factor in a bus or a ride. BEST FOR: a long, unhurried weekend lunch where the room matters as much as the curry.

Bismillah has one of the most consistent records in the whole MICHELIN Guide Singapore: by its own count a 10-time Bib Gourmand winner from 2016 to 2026, and one of only 17 establishments to have held the award in every single Singapore edition. The draw is dum biryani in the Hyderabadi style — rice and marinated meat sealed and slow-cooked together so the grains take on the spice rather than sitting beside it — with a chicken nihari that regulars rate just as highly. It describes itself as 100% Muslim owned and operated. Five outlets now: the original and Bib-listed 50 Dunlop Street, Singapore 209379 (daily 11.30am–8.30pm); 76 Shenton Way #01-03 (Mon–Fri and Sun, 10.30am–7.30pm, last orders 7pm); Jurassic Nest Food Hall at Gardens by the Bay (daily 11.30am–8.45pm); NTU North Spine Plaza and NUS's Stephen Riady Centre (both weekdays till 7.30pm, Sat till 5pm, closed Sun). BEST FOR: the best biryani in Little India, and the most reliably decorated stall on this list.

Lagnaa is the other Indian restaurant that has held the Bib Gourmand in every Singapore edition since 2016, and it's the most playful place on this list. Two things define it. First, you set your own heat on a scale of 1 to 10 — level 1 is described as 'not hot, anyone can', level 10 as 'we declare you king' — which makes it unusually good for a mixed table where someone can't take chilli and someone else is out to prove something. Second, the upstairs room is a barefoot floor: shoes off, no chairs, cushions on the ground, which children tend to love. The kitchen covers both South and North Indian, with vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options clearly flagged, and set meals start at around $23 per head. 6 Upper Dickson Road, Singapore 207466 — closed Mondays. Reservation deposits are applied as a discount off your final bill. BEST FOR: groups with wildly different spice tolerances, and anyone who wants dinner to be a bit of an event.

Anjappar is the value pick, and the one to know if you specifically want Chettinad — the fiercely peppery, dark-roasted-spice cooking of Tamil Nadu's Chettinad region, which is a genuinely different register from the coconut-and-tamarind South Indian food most Singaporeans default to. Part of a chain with around 50 outlets worldwide, the Singapore kitchen leans non-vegetarian: chicken 65 at $14.50, golden fried prawns at $21, mutton sukka, and biryanis from $11 to $17. Tandoori items run $16 to $36 and main curries $10.90 to $16, while the South Indian breakfast section starts at $7 for a masala dosa — one of the cheaper proper sit-down meals in Little India. There's a full vegetarian section too. 76-78 Race Course Road, Singapore 218575, open daily 11am to 11pm — the late close makes it a reliable dinner option when the older institutions have shut. +65 6296 5545. BEST FOR: Chettinad heat, big portions and a bill that stays reasonable.

Founded on 29 May 1947 by Murugaya Raju — who had arrived from Thanjavur in 1934 at fourteen, worked his way up in the restaurant next door and eventually bought it for $10,000 — Komala Vilas is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Singapore, and it is still in the family. The founder's grandson took over in 2015 and added a North Indian vegetarian section to the original South Indian menu, so a table can move between dosa, thali and paneer without leaving the building. It is pure vegetarian throughout, meals are served the traditional way on banana leaf, and the hours are the real quiet advantage: daily 7am to 10.30pm, public holidays included, which makes it one of very few places in Singapore serving a proper thali at breakfast. 76-78 Serangoon Road, Singapore 217981; +65 6293 6980. The same family also runs Komala Vilas Sweets & Savouries at 4 Upper Dickson Road and Fennel by Komala Vilas at 413 River Valley Road. BEST FOR: vegetarians, early risers, and anyone who wants Little India's living history on a banana leaf.