New Year’s Eve dinner and countdowns

It’s time: 2024 is nearly over and we’re ready for New Year’s Eve countdown parties at Singapore restaurants! Wondering what to do on New Year’s Eve? Here are some fabulous spots to go for the countdown in Singapore as you welcome in 2025, along with great ideas for New Year’s Eve dinner. Also, read on for some interesting trivia about New Year’s traditions from around the world.

Celebrate New Year 2024 at these Singapore restaurants and events

Pan Pacific Singapore – New Year’s Eve dinner and countdown experience

Usher in 2025 in style with a dazzling line-up of New Year’s celebrations at this luxury hotel. All-day dining restaurant Edge is pulling out all the stops this New Year 2024 with a lunch and dinner buffet spread on 31 December and 1 January. Pile your plate with a selection of premium seafood, succulent roasts and treats from the dessert bar. The highlight? The New Year’s Eve dinner on December 31 ($198 per adult, with an upgrade option to $278 for free-flowing Taittinger Brut Champagne, house wines, cocktails, and more).

Looking for a countdown in Singapore this New Year 2024? Head to the Pacific Club Lounge on the 38th floor for breathtaking views of the city’s fireworks display. Enjoy bottomless bubbly, gourmet canapés, and a chic white-themed party complete with a live DJ spinning electrifying beats as you dance the night away. The New Year’s Eve 2024 Countdown Package prices start from $258 per person.

PLUME and Pacific Emporium will also be hosting Countdown Parties for New Year’s Eve in Singapore, with a live band, DJ, cocktails, and canapes setting the tone for a night of revelry.

Or, make it a night to remember by booking a stay. That way you can enjoy the fireworks from the comfort of your own suite! Find out more about the New Year’s Eve room packages at the link below.   

7 Raffles Boulevard | 6336 8111
panpacific.com/en/hotels-and-resorts/pp-marina/offers/festive-2024.html

Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel Singapore – buffet and countdown party

Raise a toast to 2025 at this luxe riverside hotel! Join the countdown party hosted by DJ Samson Zee. Highlights include live band performances, dazzling indoor fireworks, confetti showers, and exciting lucky draw prizes. Don’t forget to capture New Year 2024 at the photobooth and take home fun souvenirs! Light bites will be served throughout the night, paired with a free-flow alcoholic drinks package for $108 and $48 for non-alcoholic. Running from 10pm to 1am, this is a party you don’t want to miss.

If feasting is more your style, head to Food Capital for a New Year Buffet. Available on 31 December and 1 January, the buffet offers dishes like pan-seared foie gras, live stations serving whole gammon ham and Australian beef striploin, a decadent Seafood Island, and chocolate fountain. Prices start from $108 for lunch on 31 December and 1 January, and $118 for the New Year’s Eve dinner on 31 December.

392 Havelock Road
6233 1338 | grandcopthorne.com.sg 

Lawry’s The Prime Rib Singapore – New Year’s Eve dinner and lunch set menus

Celebrate New Year 2024 with some all-American hospitality at Lawry’s The Prime Rib. located in the heart of Orchard Road. With stunning street views through floor-to-ceiling windows and lavish lunch and dinner set menus on 31 December and 1 January, it’s a reservation that’s guaranteed to impress!

The six-course New Year’s Eve lunch and dinner menus ($199 per person) are a decadent affair! They feature dishes like grilled octopus skewers, golden crab cakes, signature roasted prime rib of beef, herb-roasted lamb rack royale and cod fish with mushroom beurre blanc. Cap off the evening with a delicious dessert.

The celebrations don’t stop there. On New Year’s Day, tuck into a five-course spread ($169 per person) that includes classics like Lawry’s vintage salad, poached lobster tail, cauliflower soup and their signature roasted prime rib of beef carved tableside from their famous silver carts. Served with creamy US Idaho mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and winter spiced cake, it’s the perfect way to kick off 2025.

Plus, make New Year 2024 extra special with offers like a complimentary bottle of Mionetto Prosecco DOC Treviso Brut when you spend over $550.

#04-01/31 Mandarin Gallery, 333A Orchard Road
6836 3333 | reservations@lawrys.com.sg | lawrys.com.sg

Music Day Out – Magical Garden

Ring in 2025 at this indie music event at the heart of Orchard Road. As part of ONE Countdown 2025 and SCAPE’s flagship youth arts festival, ‘comma 2025’, this alternative musical showcase promises a night of vibrant performances and creative energy.

Taking place on 31 December from 5pm to 3am at SCAPE, Music Day Out features a line-up of top local and regional indie acts. From the grindcore energy of Wormrot and the nostalgic grooves of Masdo to the genre-bending songs of sub:shaman, the event showcases a wide spectrum of talent across two stages: The Ground Theatre and Playspace.

Notable performances include Korean acts ADOY and cotoba, Malaysian favourites Masdo and The Filters, and Singapore’s very own Eden Eyes and turbo boyfriend. Whether you’re a fan of introspective melodies, pulsating beats or high-octane performances, there’s something for everyone at this free, registration-only event.

Music Day Out is part of the Somerset Belt Countdown and ONE Countdown 2025, which brings communities together for SG60 celebrations, marking Singapore’s 60th anniversary with events across the island.

sg60.gov.sg/one-countdown-2025

Looking for more Singapore restaurants to count down to the new year in style? Read our best restaurants guide for more ideas on where to go for New Year’s Eve dinner.

Now that you’re clued on the finest restaurants booking for New Year’s Eve and ways to countdown in Singapore, here are a few interesting New Year’s traditions and superstitions from across the globe.

Austria

At midnight, all the radio and television stations operated by the state broadcast the sound of the bell of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. “The Blue Danube” then follows. People across the country turn out into the streets to dance the waltz in this New Year tradition.

Belarus

Some single women looking for lasting love sit in a circle, each with a pile of corn in front of them. A rooster is placed in the circle’s centre, and the woman whose grain heap it pecks first is believed to be the one who’ll get married first.

Brazil

If you head to Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for New Year’s Eve, be sure to wear white. Here, people offer white flowers as gifts to Yamanja, the Afro-Brazilian queen of the sea. The floral gifts are placed on the water, some even in special boats, hoping the queen will bring them energy and strength.

Colombia

Love to travel? So do Colombians. To be sure their year will be filled with plenty of travel opportunities, they walk around the block with an empty suitcase.

Denmark

People in Denmark save their broken dishes and throw them at the homes of their friends and family as a gesture of good luck. You can also just opt to leave a heap of broken china on doorsteps if you’d prefer.

Ecuador

Some Ecuadorians make scarecrow-like effigies called los anos viejos (“the old years”) of people they dislike or of notable people from last year. Dolls and masks line the streets in the weeks leading up to the holiday. In Quito, the capital, a New Year’s Eve parade at night culminates with the effigies being tossed onto giant bonfires. Also, women and kids dress up as viudas, or widows of the dolls; some dress as Baby New Year. Together, they use just about everything imaginable to block streets, even highways, until you pay a toll of money or candy.

El Salvador

People here are said to crack an egg in a glass at midnight and leave it on their windowsill as a tradition. Fortunes are then predicted based on what shape the egg takes by morning.

Estonia

You’d better have a big appetite if you plan to spend New Year’s Eve in Estonia. There, one New Year’s tradition involves eating seven, nine or twelve times on the day, as these are all lucky numbers in Estonia. For every meal consumed, you apparently gain the strength of that many men for the following year! Luckily, some food should be left behind for the spirits of ancestors who visit on the day.

Finland

Some Finns are said to melt lead in a tin pan on the stove and throw it quickly into a bucket of cold water. The resulting blob is then analysed and all sorts of predictions made. What kind of shadows does it cast by candlelight? This New Year’s tradition is loads of fun and never taken too seriously.

France

The New Year’s holiday period goes to 6 January and ends with a celebration of the Epiphany. A special kind of cake called la galette des rois (“King’s Pie”) is served. It consists of two flat sheets of puff pastry filled with almond paste. The cake also contains a feve, or small china doll. Whoever finds the doll gets to wear a paper crown and also choose a partner.

Germany

Like in Finland, some Germans make predictions using molten lead. It’s also considered good luck to touch a chimney sweep or rub some ash on your forehead.

Greece

The Greeks have all sorts of New Year’s Eve traditions. During some family dinners, the hostess puts jewellery on a plate and serves it as a sign of the coming year’s prosperity. Dinner plates aren’t washed because Saint Vassilis (Greek Santa Claus) is expecting food when he visits. At midnight, lights are turned off and on again; this represents the new light of the new year. A vasilopita (also a “King’s Pie”!) is then served with a foil-wrapped coin inside. Whoever finds it is said to be blessed with luck for the year ahead.

The Philippines

There are many New Year’s traditions and superstitions in the Philippines. One involves opening all the doors, windows and cabinets in the house to let the bad energy out and the good energy in, all while making noise to keep the evil spirits away.

Romania

New Year’s Eve belongs to the animals in Romania. Farmers apparently try to hear their animals talk; if they do, it’s said they’ll have good luck for the coming year. People also don bear costumes (often made out of real bear fur) and dance to keep evil at bay.

Russia

Some Russians write down a wish on a piece of paper, burn it, throw it into a champagne glass and drink it before midnight turns to 12.01am.

Scotland

Immediately after the clock strikes midnight, the “first-footing” begins. This new year’s eve tradition involves a dark-haired male being the first person to cross your threshold after midnight for good luck in the new year. Sometimes, the first-footer brings gifts such as coal or whiskey.

South Africa

In Johannesburg, locals who live in the city’s Hillbrow neighbourhood toss old furniture out the windows, or off their balconies. The idea is to get rid of stuff from the old year and also embrace what the new year has to offer.

Spain

As the clock strikes midnight, Spanish people have been known to eat twelve white grapes, one for each chime of the clock. This New Year’s tradition has its origins in 1909. Back then, grape growers thought of it as a way to cut down on the year’s production surplus.

Turkey

Some folks in Turkey apparently grab a handful of pomegranate seeds and throw them from their balconies. The more the seeds burst, the more plentiful the year ahead is supposed to be.

Also …

Aside from all these weird and wonderful practices, did you know there are lots of NYE superstitions about underwear?! In Turkey, red is the magic colour for fertility and passion, while Columbia and Venezuela believe yellow lingerie brings happiness and peace. Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans are said to don white undies for fertility and health. Some Argentinians also wear brand new pink underwear to attract love.

Liked this article on New Year’s Eve traditions around the world? For more interesting stories, head to our Living in Singapore section.