Beach Escape

Tipsy Collective co-founder David Gan reflects on opening the group's biggest and most ambitious project to date, Tipsy Unicorn, a massive beach club in Sentosa where entertainment, gastronomy and music come together

- Dudi Aureus

David Gan is the first to admit that he is hardly a beach person. But at the height of the pandemic in 2020, when travel borders were shut and Singapore initiated the circuit breaker, the 31-year-old co-founder and executive chairman of home-grown hospitality group Tipsy Collective found himself dreaming of a beach getaway over conversations with close friend Derek Ong, the group's late co-founder. "This idea really resonated with us because we were stuck in Singapore and the only place where we could feel like we were overseas was in Sentosa," he says, adding that beach clubs for them recalled memories of drinking by the beach in Bali, for instance, and just having a good time with friends.

This yearning for a beach holiday became the seed that led to the opening of Tipsy Unicorn last October, a 19,000 sq feet beach club, which took over the space vacated by Wave House Sentosa on Siloso Beach. This is the first "mythical animal" in Tipsy Collective's coterie of 11 dining concepts, which include Tipsy Penguin (the first restaurant which opened in the heartlands in 2018), Tipsy Bird, Tipsy Panda and Tipsy Hippo. Gan shares that Tipsy Unicorn-the collective's biggest and most ambitious project to date was envisioned to be a place where "nature and the excitement of entertainment, gastronomy, and music come together in perfect harmony".