Smoke & Bitters at Wynn Palace: Where Asia’s bar royalty meets culinary fire

Two nights before Macau’s glittering gala for Asia’s 50 Best Bars, while the industry’s elite prepared for the main event, Smoke & Bitters’ Lahiru “Lalla” Don Ranasinghe and SW Steakhouse Executive Chef Helder Amaral were doing something far more intimate at Wynn Palace. They were cooking. And pouring. And quietly demonstrating why hospitality—not rankings—remains the soul of this business.

Smoke & Bitters had already secured its place in the spotlight before the ceremony, claiming the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award in the run-up to the main event. This recognition, voted for by more than 300 members of the Asia’s 50 Best Bars Academy, speaks to something deeper than mixology alone—to warmth, to storytelling, to the kind of welcome that transforms a bar into a destination. And this dinner, a collaboration at the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star SW Steakhouse, was that philosophy translated to the plate.

The tasting menu opens with audacity. Crab Mille Feuille layers delicate crab meat with smoked crab and curry emulsion, a dish that announces this will not be a conventional steakhouse dinner. Then comes a plate singing with tension—mango, house-cured anchovies, and herb dressing. The sweetness of tropical fruit colliding with briny, funky fish is the kind of risk that separates great kitchens from the merely competent. It lands, improbably, perfectly.

Mediterranean tuna arrives with avocado, radish, and kaffir lime, offering brightness before the real fireworks. But it is the progression of ingredients that tells the story here—Sri Lankan arrack appears like a recurring motif, first in coconut sambal and prawn butter with charred prawns that have absorbed fire like a sponge soaks water, then again in an olive oil-laced semifreddo paired with burnt vanilla in a chocolate cremeux that redefines dessert. This is not a kitchen dabbling in exoticism. It is a kitchen speaking a fluent language of cross-cultural flavor.

The dish that stopped conversation was the SRF beef ribs and sirloin, accompanied by gem lettuce, zucchini, and chimichurri. In an era of theatrical plating and conceptual gymnastics, this was honest in its ambition. The beef carried a char that spoke of genuine fire, not pyrotechnic spectacle. The Argentine chimichurri was bracingly correct—garlic, parsley, vinegar, and oil in proportions that Argentines themselves would approve. It was barbecue reimagined as precision craft, what the restaurant describes as “smokeless barbecue,” a clever inversion that suggests technique over theatrics.

Behind the bar, Don Ranasinghe curated a bespoke cocktail menu designed to echo and enhance each course. His approach with arrack—a spirit Sri Lanka guards jealously—demonstrated why Smoke & Bitters earned its reputation. The pairings didn’t simply accompany the food; they engaged in conversation with it, each sip revealing new dimensions in Amaral’s cooking.

Two evenings later, the awards ceremony at Wynn Palace crowned Guangzhou’s Hope & Sesame as The Best Bar in Asia for 2026, marking the first time a mainland Chinese bar has ever claimed the top spot. Seoul’s Zest retained second place, while Hong Kong’s Bar Leone—the 2025 winner—settled into third . Bangkok dominated the list with eight entries, while China achieved its highest-ever tally with seven bars . Smoke & Bitters secured the No. 29 position, also earning the title of Best Bar in Sri Lanka for the fourth consecutive year.

What made this dinner remarkable was not the award that would follow, nor the celebrity of its creators. It was the quiet confidence of a kitchen and bar working in perfect unison, each course building toward something larger than the sum of its parts. Between the coconut sambal and the arrack semifreddo, between the smoked crab and the burnt vanilla, Amaral and Don Ranasinghe delivered something rare: a dinner that tasted like the future of Asian fine dining. Wynn Palace has become Asia’s most compelling stage for culinary collaboration, and this evening proved why. For those fortunate enough to be seated at SW Steakhouse, the real celebration had already begun.