For the newly arrived rich, the private lounge within a lounge at Circle 33 on Scotts Road has become a rite of passage, where members from China, Singapore and Malaysia discuss deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars well past 2 a.m. over bottles of Bordeaux, Cuban cigars and poker, according to people familiar with the club.
One of the hottest wine bars for Chinese billionaires isn’t atop a Shanghai office tower or within a Beijing courtyard house. It’s in a modest black-and-white bungalow next to a six-lane thruway in the heart of Singapore.
After stepping past the reception desk with its wall of wine bottles, visitors enter a two-story den of rattan-backed chairs and tables where bankers and crypto-entrepreneurs gather. The truly connected are escorted down a garden path, past recreations of Terracotta Warriors to a pavilion with statues of cranes standing on turtles, symbols of longevity in Chinese culture.
