This guide is built from the live tour page of Singapore Food Tour on A Chef’s Tour — price, start time, group size, tastings and dietary notes come straight from the operator, never invented.

Two Singapore Tours, Two Different Routes

A Chef’s Tour runs small-group food walks in around 80 cities, led by cooks, chefs and local foodies. In Singapore it lists two evening-side departures, and it is easy to assume they are the same tour at two prices. They are not. The page for the Singapore Food Tour describes a loop through three distinctly different neighbourhoods — Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam — with a subway hop in the middle. The page for the Singapore Private Food Tour starts at Farrer Park, ends at Little India MRT station, and spends its time in the Indian-influenced streets in between.

That difference matters more than the US$7 gap in price. One tour is a sampler of Singapore’s three main food traditions — Chinese, Indian and Malay-Arab. The other is a deeper look at one district. Choose on how you like to eat, not on the price tag.

How we wrote this: we are Joona and Alla, family travellers based in Rovaniemi, Finland, and we have not taken this tour. We research food tours from the live tour pages and send readers to the ones that hold up, so every fact below comes from A Chef’s Tour’s own page.

The Singapore Food Tour: Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam

According to the live tour page, this walk begins at Maxwell MRT station and the Maxwell Centre, wanders through Chinatown, and includes a visit to a branch of Hawker Chan, which the page calls the world’s first Michelin-starred street hawker dish. You then ride the subway to Little India, looking for dosas “packed with aromatic spices”, before arriving at Arab Street in Kampong Glam. The route ends at Sultan Mosque, next to Haji Lane, and the page suggests extending the evening there.

The dishes the page names are soya sauce chicken with fragrant rice, crunchy hand-made popiah, oyster cakes, dosas and pistachio-coated treats in Kampong Glam. The operator says the tour includes “12+ varied tastings” and “no hidden charges”. It describes family-owned eateries and a few Michelin-rated recipes, and promises the stories behind hawker food culture from the host.

Who is it for? First-time visitors who want one evening that explains why Singapore’s food is a three-way conversation between Chinese, Indian and Malay-Arab cooking. The subway hop is the one logistical wrinkle: it means the group stays together on public transport, which is fine for most adults and older children but worth knowing about if you travel with a pram.

The Singapore Private Food Tour: A Deeper Look at Little India

The page for the Singapore Private Food Tour is shorter on route detail, but the logistics are specific. The tour departs from street level at Farrer Park MRT station, Exit H, where your guide wears an A Chef’s Tour t-shirt, and ends at Little India MRT station. The listing gives the time as 15:00–19:00, a four-hour window. Transport is listed simply as a walking tour, and there is no pick-up or drop-off.

On food, the page promises that you will “dip crispy shards of roti prata into curry”, eat roasted pork and char siu, try steamy dim sum and work your chopsticks over sticky rojak salad, with “more than a dozen” dishes, snacks and drinks, and the structured listing says 13+ tastings. It also describes a district “rarely visited by tourists”, designed to “delight first timers and returning visitors alike”.

One point we cannot resolve from the page: the word “Private” is in the name, yet the listing gives a per-person price and a group maximum of eight. We cannot tell from the page whether you book the group departure or a private group, so if privacy is the reason you want this tour, ask A Chef’s Tour at info@achefstour.com before you pay.

Side by Side: Price, Route, Start and Finish

Read the table with one caution: the Food Tour page does not list a start time, so check the calendar for departures before you plan the day around it.

Price: Is US$99 or US$92 Good Value in Singapore?

Singapore is one of the more expensive places on the A Chef’s Tour map. Most of its Asian tours cost between US$35 and US$59, so US$99 and US$92 are at the top of the range; among Asian tours only Hong Kong’s listing is higher than the Singapore Food Tour. Whether that is fair depends on what you would otherwise pay. Hawker-centre dishes in Singapore are cheap one at a time, but 12–13 tastings in several districts, with the stories behind them, is a different product from buying lunch at a hawker centre.

The way we would think about it: the Food Tour buys breadth, the Private-named tour buys a slightly lower price per person and a tighter route. A couple pays about US$198 for the first and US$184 for the second, before any child rate. Neither includes transport to the meeting point, though the Food Tour’s subway hop is part of the walk. If you only eat lightly, or if one person in your party will skip several dishes, the cost per tasting rises quickly, so read the dietary notes below first.

Dietary Notes: What Each Page Lists

Dietary information is thin on the Singapore pages, and we will not guess where the operator is silent. For the Singapore Food Tour, the only dietary line is: “Pescatarian: Possible but meat is present in 2-3 dishes with no alternatives available”.

For the Singapore Private Food Tour, the page lists:

• Gluten / coeliac: “Gluten in 2-3 tastings (out of 15 total) so OK if a mild intolerance. Not advised for celiac disease, as unavoidable traces of soy sauce in some tastings”.
• Vegetarian / vegan: “Unsuitable for vegetarians / vegans sorry, as over half the menu has meat or seafood-based ingredients”.
• Pescatarian: “Possible but meat is present in 5-6 dishes, with no alternatives possible”.

Notice the two different pescatarian answers: 2–3 meat dishes on one tour, 5–6 on the other. For a pescatarian, the Food Tour is the less restrictive choice by the page’s own numbers. For vegetarians, the Private-named tour is explicitly unsuitable, and the Food Tour page does not list a vegetarian line, so A Chef’s Tour doesn’t list this — ask them before booking (info@achefstour.com). Street-food tours of this kind cannot guarantee allergen-free dishes, so anyone with a severe allergy should write to the operator first. Halal is not listed on either page.

Children and Families

Neither Singapore page lists a child policy or a minimum age. That does not mean there is no child price — the operator’s policy is stated differently on different tour pages and a few Singapore details simply are not published — it means we cannot quote one. Ask before you book.

What we can say from the route descriptions: the Food Tour involves a subway ride and three neighbourhoods in 3.5–4 hours, and the Private-named tour runs 15:00–19:00, which means finishing around dinner time rather than late at night. For small children, an earlier finish and a single district are easier. The Singapore heat and humidity are real; carry water beyond the bottle provided, and expect stops that are indoors but not always air-conditioned. Spice is part of the Little India stops on both routes, so a child who avoids chilli will need to be told which dishes to skip.

How to Book and What the Small Print Says

Bookings are made directly on achefstour.com, not through us: open the tour page, pick a date on the live calendar and you get instant confirmation. We never take payment. Open the Singapore Food Tour page or the Singapore Private Food Tour page, whichever matches your plan.

1. Choose the date and the number of guests on the tour page.
2. Check the meeting point and start time on your booking confirmation.
3. Tell A Chef’s Tour about dietary needs when you book (info@achefstour.com) rather than at the stall.

Both pages list free cancellation up to 48 hours before the tour for a full refund. Group size is capped at eight; for private groups or nine or more, A Chef’s Tour asks you to contact them.

We are an A Chef’s Tour affiliate and earn a commission on bookings made through our links — it does not change the price you pay.

FAQ

Our Honest Final Word

For most first-time visitors we would pick the Singapore Food Tour: it is the route that explains the city, with three neighbourhoods, a Michelin-linked stop and a finish near Haji Lane. It costs more, and the page is silent about start times, so check the calendar. The Singapore Private Food Tour makes sense if you prefer one district, an earlier finish and a lower price — as long as you are comfortable with its stricter dietary limits and you have asked what “private” means.

Neither is cheap, and we haven’t taken either, so treat this as research, not a review. Book whichever route matches how you eat, and read the dietary lines first: Singapore Food Tour or Singapore Private Food Tour.