Le Bistro was one of Singapore's first gay bars and opened in the 1960s. However, even by the late 1960s, it had not yet gained a reputation for being a gay venue. It was really just a hip bar, very conducive for hanging out at. It was located at the basement of a landmark building called Tropicana along Scotts Road. One approached the entrance to Le Bistro by walking along the left side of the building (looking from the main road) and heading towards the back. Tropicana was an exclusive and expensive 4-storey entertainment complex renowned for pioneering topless dancing girl revues and occupied the exact spot where Pacific Plaza now stands. Le Bistro was for those who either could not or did not want to pay the cover charge to see the topless revue in Tropicana upstairs. The appeal of Le Bistro was also the live music provided by an Indian woman singing and playing the piano behind a huge horseshoe bar. She alternated with a male guitarist.
Tropicana housed 3 establishments where gay men would congregate - first Le Bistro, then Café Vienna and Treetops Bar.
Sometime in the early years of the 1970s, the gay clientele started to come. They never turned the place entirely into a gay bar. Gay and straight clientele would sit round the bar listening to the performers. The bar was well patronized but never chock-a-block full like some gay bars or discos can be nowadays. It had become well known as a chill-out bar, especially amongst English-educated gays and a reputed pick-up haunt for white tourists and local, deeply closeted homosexuals. One could gain entry discreetly via a small side road connecting Claymore Hill and Scotts Road. Gay gatherings began on Sundays, a tradition which grew out of earlier attempts by Singapore food and beverage outlets to copy the American practice of holding Sunday afternoon tea dances, popular during that era. During that time slot, bars and discos were officially closed but Le Bistro's owner would admit his "friends" for a private party. As numbers grew and confidence increased, the afternoon tea parties eventually took over the Sunday nights.
These events were so well attended that they rivalled the iconic Pebble Bar in popularity and jostled for the same clientele, although each venue had its own niche. After Le Bistro eventually closed down, Pebble Bar once again came into its own and continued as THE gay meeting place to be until the Hotel Singapura Inter-Continental was demolished in the mid-1980s.
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This article was written by Roy Tan.