Hombre Cantina

Come chillax with a duo that can rightly declare to be Singapore’s most laidback but passionate fans of Mexican cantina culture at their Boat Quay headquarters, Hombre Cantina, where refuelling and unwinding are two sides of the same well-polished peso. These guys know how to wrap a burrito, make friends of beans and rice, and wash it all down with south-of-the-border beer and boutique tequila and mezcal. The schedule these two dudes keep is far from lazy, but charitably designed to allow you to cool your boots all day – open from lunch until late, Hombre Cantina is the perfect hangout for the city’s chicos and chicas.

Found down busy Boat Quay, Hombre Cantina strikes the perfect balance between its roles as a hard-working bar and restaurant serving nothing but the best Mexican liquid refreshment and casual but carefully crafted cuisine, and a venue playing playful and unpretentious, sun-drunk, take-a-siesta-in-a-deckchair vibes. Being a cantina, inspired specifically by characterful, friendly food and drink shacks strung along the long coastal stretches of the Baja peninsula, the remit here is first and foremost a selection of some of Singapore’s best Mexican and south of SoCal drinks. We’re talking San Miguel on tap, for starters, bottles and buckets of Dos XX, Tecate, Bohemia and Pacifico, plus the special Chelada, beer with lime juice and a salted rim, or the Michelada, the same again plus Hombre Cantina’s secret spice blend for good measure.

Then there’s the tequila and mezcal selection, surely Hombre Cantina’s ace in the hole when it comes to Singapore’s many pretenders to the king-cantina throne. The dudes behind this Boat Quay bar and restaurant certainly know their stuff – the renowned Mexican hard stuff that is – and their list is as educational as it is, well, inspirational. The list of distinct types of heavenly liquor distilled from the blue agave (and the maguey agave plant in the case of mezcal) by artisanal Mexican moonshiners is long and certainly arduous for one inclined to conquer them all. Over twenty distinct tequila distilleries are represented here, covering sweeter highland varieties and more herbaceous types from the lower lying regions, as well as smokey mezcal from such distilleries as Del Maguey, Monte, Sombra, and (our favourite) Illegal. Ask Hombre Cantina’s bartenders for the full catalogue with tasting notes, and mention when you book if you want to brave Hombre Cantina’s tasting sampler of 3 - 5 types of alcoholic agave, with sangrita on the side!