Habibi-san FAQ: Pork, Alcohol, Dietary Notes and Booking

Middle Eastern theming raises certain questions, and a Japanese izakaya format raises others. Rather than make people email to find out, here are the answers we give most often — including the one a lot of restaurants answer evasively.

Are you halal?

No. Habibi-san is not halal certified and does not describe itself as halal-friendly. There is pork on the menu at both of our rooms and both have a full bar.

The question comes up constantly because half our cooking is Middle Eastern, so it deserves a plain answer rather than a careful one. If halal is a requirement for your table, we are not the right booking, and we would rather you knew that now than at the door.

What pork is actually on the menu?

At 29 Hamilton Road, the Mangalica pork collar chop and beans — fennel spice, wasabi and butter bean mash, charred vinegared radicchio, tonkotsu jus. That is the one pork dish in the Biggies section, and it is one of the dishes reviewers name most often.

At Li’l Habibi, our kushiyaki counter at 55 Haji Lane, there is more of it: an Iberico pork jowl skewer, a mortadella skewer, and loaded pork nachos built on a pork ragu. The same pork ragu turns up elsewhere on that menu, which is deliberate — it is part of how we run the kitchen.

Do you serve alcohol?

Yes, and it is a real list rather than a token one. Five sakes, including a snow-aged junmai ginjo and a sparkling one; a wine list with an unusual Macedonian section alongside the French and Italian bottles; Suntory Premium Malt’s on the beer side; and a signature cocktail list that runs from an olive-and-brine bourbon drink to a matcha sake and butterscotch number.

Li’l Habibi works differently. Every drink there is provided by Bar Stories, the cocktail bar we share the Haji Lane building with, and they famously work without a printed cocktail menu — you describe what you feel like and they build it. We wrote about how to order in a bar with no menu, because it throws people the first time.

Is there anything here for a vegetarian?

Honest answer: we do not publish a separate vegetarian menu, and we are not going to pretend the restaurant is built for one.

What is true is that the mezze section is largely vegetable-led — pita charred over the coals, fire-tossed edamame with shiro miso and confit garlic butter, matbucha, babaganoush, labne, the wood-smoked olives the menu insists on calling Some Special Kind of Olives, and Habibi’s spanakopita. The burrata di puglia sits in small plates.

What is also true is that several of those arrive with something from an animal on top as standard. The chickpea hummus comes with ikura. The Brussel sprouts come with shredded bonito. The cassava and taramasalata is built on cured roe. So the useful thing is not a list from us — it is telling your server before you order, so they can tell you what can be left off on the night and what cannot.

What about allergies and dietary restrictions?

Both menus carry a line about this, and they are worded differently on purpose.

The Hamilton Road menu says: “Please let us know if you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies.” The Li’l Habibi menu says: “Please let us know your dietary restrictions (if any) in advance. Substitutions may be politely declined.”

That second sentence is not us being difficult. Li’l Habibi is a small kushiyaki counter working off a fixed prep list at a live grill, and there is genuinely less room to rebuild a skewer than there is to rebuild a mezze spread in a full kitchen. Telling us in advance is what makes the difference at both rooms — the mezze can flex quite a lot before it is plated, and almost none of it after.

One dish gets asked about more than all the others put together, and it deserves its own answer rather than a line in an FAQ: the kibbeh nayyeh is raw lamb, and we have written out the honest version — what the dish is, what a kitchen can and cannot promise about raw meat, and who should order something else instead.

Do I need to book?

For Hamilton Road, yes, we would book. Reservations run through Chope, and the link lives on our reservations page. The phone is +65 6348 2467. Weekend brunch books through the same Chope link as dinner, and Chope gives dinner last orders as 9.45pm. (This answer used to say the phone was the surest route for brunch. Chope takes brunch bookings, so we have corrected it.)

Li’l Habibi books through Bar Stories rather than through us, because it is their building — that link is on the same reservations page, and it is the way to book.

When are you open?

Habibi-san at 29 Hamilton Road: dinner 5pm to 11pm, Tuesday to Sunday. Brunch 11am to 2.30pm, Saturday and Sunday only. Closed Mondays.

Li’l Habibi at 55 Haji Lane: 5.30pm to 10.30pm, Tuesday to Sunday. Evenings only — it is a kushiyaki counter, not a cafe, and people do turn up in the afternoon expecting otherwise.

Both rooms close Mondays, every week. It is the one day you cannot eat with us at either address, and it catches out more people than the brunch hours do.

Which Habibi is which?

This trips people up more than anything else on this page. Habibi-san is 29 Hamilton Road, Singapore 209198, in Jalan Besar. Li’l Habibi is 55 Haji Lane, Singapore 189248, inside Bar Stories.

Haji Lane was our original address, and a lot of listing sites, guides and old reviews still send people there for Habibi-san. They will find a Habibi — just the little one. The word habibi is common enough that other businesses in Singapore use it too, so if you are checking an address anywhere other than our own location page, check the street name as well as the name over the door.

Service charge and GST?

Hamilton Road: 10% service charge, no GST. The menu’s own phrasing is “Prices subjected to 10% service charge. No G.S.T. Woohoo!”

Li’l Habibi: 10% service charge and 9% GST.

Yes, our own two menus disagree with each other, and yes, that is worth thirty seconds of your attention before you order — we went through the arithmetic of Singapore’s “++” convention in our guide to what Japanese food actually costs here.

Anything else

If your question is really “what should I order”, that is a longer answer and it has its own guide. If it is “what is this place trying to be”, that is fun dining, not fine dining. If it is “how did you end up here”, the timeline covers it.

Otherwise: the menu and the gallery are the fastest way to see what you are walking into, and the table is here when you want it.

Re-checked 22 October 2026: hours and booking against our own pages and our Chope page, and every menu line on this page against the current menu files, which have not changed.