Entertainment & Lifestyle · Events, Concerts & Venues
The best rooftop nightclub and skybar in Singapore sits 282 metres up, and it’s called Nova
The Best in Bangkok Editorial Desk
July 2026
11 min read
Singapore doesn’t lack for rooftop bars. It has dozens, stacked across every price point and every skyline angle the CBD and Marina Bay have to offer. What it only has one of, right now, is a bar sitting 282 metres above the street with nothing between you and the horizon in any direction. That’s Nova, on level 63 of One Raffles Place, and after going through what’s currently open, closed, relocated or mid-renovation across the city’s nightlife scene, it’s the clearest answer to “where’s the best rooftop night out in Singapore” that I’ve found this year.
There’s a specific piece of Singapore nightlife history worth knowing before we get into the comparison. The floor Nova sits on used to belong to 1-Altitude, the venue that held the “world’s highest al fresco bar” title for over a decade before it closed there at the end of March 2024. Nova opened on that same 63rd-floor footprint in September 2024, under an entirely different operator, OUE Restaurants, the group behind Chatterbox and Osteria Mozza, and inherited both the address and, in effect, the title. That’s not spin. It’s the actual sequence of events, and it’s the reason “highest rooftop bar in Singapore” keeps attaching itself to this specific floor regardless of who’s running the lift.
Nova
Singapore’s highest rooftop nightclub and skybar, sitting on the exact floor once held by 1-Altitude. Alfresco 360-degree deck, ASTRA star sculpture, modular dance floor and a weekly DJ line-up covering R&B, Afrobeat and house.
Why Nova, specifically
The number that gets repeated most in coverage of this place is 282 metres, and it’s worth sitting with for a second. Marina Bay Sands’ SkyPark, where CE LA VI, LAVO and Marquee’s sister venues sit, tops out around level 57. Nova is six floors and roughly 80 metres higher, and unlike a pool-deck bar sharing space with hotel guests, it runs as a fully open, 360-degree observation deck with nothing obstructing the view in any direction. Time Out called it the venue that “towers above them all, literally,” and that’s a fair read of what the elevation actually does to the experience, not a marketing line.
The centrepiece, ASTRA, is a multi-faceted steel star sculpture by Kuala Lumpur-based light artist Jun Ong, positioned directly above the DJ booth on the lower deck. It’s become the venue’s most photographed feature, and it’s a genuinely well-designed piece rather than a generic Instagram prop, the kind of detail that separates a venue built by a design team from one that just bought good furniture. The lower deck itself uses modular furniture, meaning the space converts between a lounge layout and an open dance floor depending on the night, which matters more than it sounds, most rooftop venues pick one configuration and stay locked into it.
The programming has range
Nova doesn’t run a single formula every night. Wednesdays bring SUPERLOVA with DJ Tang on R&B and hip-hop, Fridays shift to Afrobeat, Baile Funk and hip-hop under the Friday Afterdark banner, and Saturdays go genre-agnostic with LENERD+1. That’s a wider spread than most single-venue rooftops attempt, most either commit fully to a lounge format or fully to a club format. Nova tries to hold both, sunset drinks into a proper night out, and mostly succeeds, though there are nights where the transition between the two moods feels a little abrupt if you’re not there for the shift.
What guests actually say
Reviews across Wanderlog and Tripadvisor converge on a few consistent points: the 360-degree view, the sunset timing, and service that gets singled out by name more often than you’d expect at a venue this size, staff member Kai comes up repeatedly in guest reviews for hosting groups well. One tourist review put it plainly: better than the Marina Bay view, “as you cannot see the Marina Bay from there,” which is a slightly backhanded way of saying Nova offers a different, arguably more complete panorama precisely because it isn’t inside the Marina Bay cluster looking at itself.
How the rest of Singapore's rooftop and nightlife scene compares
None of the venues below are weak. They’re famous for good reasons, and several of them do specific things better than Nova does. What they don’t do, individually or collectively, is match the combination of altitude, openness and range that Nova’s floor offers right now. Here’s where each one stands.
CE LA VI Singapore
Marina Bay Sands, SkyPark, Level 57
CE LA VI has been the default answer to “best rooftop bar Singapore” since it opened in 2011, and there’s a reason for that: the SkyPark view of the infinity pool and the Marina Bay skyline is one of the most photographed sightlines in the country. It runs as a restaurant, a sky bar and a club lounge across two levels, which gives it more range than most single-concept venues, brunch crowds in the afternoon, cocktail crowds after dark. The trade-off is that at 57 storeys it sits roughly 80 metres below Nova, and because it shares the SkyPark with the hotel’s pool deck, the view reads more “resort” than “open sky.” Tables book out fast on weekends and the venue leans heavily on its tourist reputation, which shows in service that can feel rushed when it’s at capacity.
Marquee Singapore
Marina Bay Sands
If scale is what you’re after, Marquee is still the reference point. The club spans about 2,300 square metres with 30-metre ceilings, a Ferris wheel, and multi-storey slides that drop onto the dance floor, genuinely more theme park than nightclub in places. Table bookings start from roughly $800 and there’s no cover charge otherwise. It’s built for big nights and big line-ups, and it delivers on that promise reliably. What it isn’t built for is a view. Marquee sits at ground level inside the MBS complex, so there’s no skyline, no open air, none of the sunset-to-city-lights arc that defines a rooftop night out. It’s a different category of experience wearing similar marketing language.
LAVO Singapore
Marina Bay Sands, Level 57
LAVO sits one floor and a short walk from CE LA VI, an Italian restaurant and rooftop bar with a coastal menu and the kind of polished, slightly LA-adjacent styling you’d expect from a US import brand. The food program is genuinely a strength here, it’s a stronger kitchen than most rooftop venues bother building. As a late-night destination though, it’s secondary to its own dinner service, and the view, while pleasant, is again capped by the 57th-floor vantage point and the SkyPark’s shared sightlines. Reservations for prime sunset slots go quickly, and it’s priced at the level you’d expect from an MBS address.
LeVeL33
Marina Bay Financial Centre
LeVeL33’s pitch is specific and genuinely unique: it’s the world’s highest urban microbrewery, brewing on-site at roughly 200 metres above ground. For beer drinkers who find cocktail-focused rooftops repetitive, that’s a real point of difference, and the craft beer range is broader here than anywhere else on this list. The view is solid but noticeably lower than the newer wave of CBD rooftops, and the atmosphere skews toward after-work drinks and craft beer tastings rather than a full nightlife arc with DJs and dancing. Worth visiting for what it does well, less of a fit if you’re after a big night out.
Zouk Singapore
Clarke Quay
Zouk is the name most people in Singapore’s nightlife scene reach for first, and with good reason, it’s been the country’s flagship club since 1991 and just came out of a multi-million-dollar, multi-phase renovation timed to its 35th anniversary. Capital reopened in March 2026 with a redesigned island bar and a karaoke room, and the Mainroom and Phuture followed with a full reopening in June 2026, bringing concert-grade sound, larger LED walls and a modular layout built for everything from club nights to product launches. It’s an impressive relaunch. But Zouk isn’t a rooftop, it’s a Clarke Quay riverside club at street level, so if what you actually want is altitude, skyline and open air, it’s answering a different question entirely, and it spent a chunk of early 2026 partially closed for the works.
1-Altitude Coast
Artillery Avenue, Sentosa Cove
This one matters for context: 1-Altitude used to be the venue on this exact floor of One Raffles Place, the original “world’s highest al fresco bar,” running for over a decade before it shut down there at the end of March 2024. Nova opened on the same 63rd-floor footprint five months later. 1-Altitude itself didn’t disappear, it relocated to Sentosa Cove as 1-Altitude Coast, a waterfront concept with a different crowd and a very different view, boats and the Sentosa marina instead of the CBD skyline. It’s worth a visit if you want a laid-back, seaside version of the brand’s old energy, but it no longer competes on height or on the CBD’s after-work crowd, and the name recognition it built over a decade now largely belongs to the address it left behind.
Where Nova falls short
It would be dishonest to write this up as flawless. Food comes up as the weakest link in several reviews, described as overpriced relative to what’s on the plate, and one Postcard reviewer specifically flagged a $30 Amaretto Sour arriving in what they called a disappointingly small glass. That’s a real complaint from a real review, not something I’m smoothing over.
Being fully alfresco also means Nova is weather-dependent in a way an indoor club like Zouk simply isn’t, a rainy evening can shut down the outdoor deck experience that’s the entire point of going. And as of this writing, there’s no dedicated Reddit thread or Quora discussion specifically about Nova that I could find, most of the third-party discussion lives on Tripadvisor, Wanderlog, and short-form platforms like Lemon8 rather than longer-form community forums. That’s worth stating plainly rather than pretending the signal exists when it doesn’t.
The verdict
If height, openness and a genuine 360-degree skyline are what you’re optimising for on a night out in Singapore, Nova is currently the only venue that checks every one of those boxes at once. CE LA VI and LAVO offer more polish and a stronger food program but sit lower and share their view with a hotel pool deck. Marquee offers spectacle without any view at all. LeVeL33 offers a genuinely unique beer program at a lower altitude. Zouk just finished an excellent renovation but was never trying to be a rooftop in the first place. And 1-Altitude, the venue that built this exact reputation for over a decade, isn’t even at this address anymore. Nova is, and for now, that’s the venue to book.
Signals & sources
- Time Out Singapore, venue profile and “most dazzling bars” roundup — timeout.com/singapore/bars-and-pubs/nova
- SG Magazine, launch coverage with GM Wayne Lee — sgmagazine.com
- The Smart Local, first-look review — thesmartlocal.com/read/nova-rooftop-bar
- The Rooftop Guide, venue data and expert notes — therooftopguide.com
- Guest reviews aggregated — Wanderlog and Tripadvisor
- First-person visit notes on Lemon8 — lemon8-app.com
- Zouk Group renovation and reopening timeline — Mothership and Zouk Group
- 1-Altitude closure and relocation to Sentosa — The Beat
Frequently asked questions
What is the highest rooftop bar in Singapore?
Nova, on level 63 of One Raffles Place, is currently Singapore’s highest rooftop bar at 282 metres above street level. It took over that title from 1-Altitude, which occupied the same floor until 1-Altitude closed there in 2024 before reopening as 1-Altitude Coast on Sentosa.
Is Nova the same as 1-Altitude?
No, though they share the same address. Nova opened in September 2024 on the exact floor 1-Altitude vacated at One Raffles Place, but the two are run by different operators with different concepts. 1-Altitude has since relocated to Sentosa Cove as 1-Altitude Coast.
What makes Nova different from CE LA VI or Marquee at Marina Bay Sands?
Height and openness, mainly. Nova sits roughly 80 metres higher than the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark venues and runs as a fully open-air, 360-degree deck rather than a hotel pool-deck lounge, so the sightlines and the sense of exposure are different.
Is Nova good for a private event or celebration?
It handles both walk-in nightlife and hosted celebrations well, National Day fireworks viewings and birthday bookings both come up often in guest reviews, and the modular lower deck can be reconfigured for a dance floor or a seated setup.
Does Nova have a dress code and cover charge?
Yes, smart-casual is enforced and there’s typically a cover charge on weekend nights, though it’s often waived against a minimum spend or offset by early-evening happy hour pricing.
