II Lido Restaurant of Sentosa came out tops at the inaugural Singapore Business Review (SBR) Restaurant Awards 2008. The restaurant beat 129 other nominees by a selected panel of 19 VIP judges to land the “Best Restaurant Bar” award, and also claimed the “Italian Restaurant of the Year” award in its category.

The top 25 restaurants from the 130-list were ranked using a Chef’s Hat ranking system, with the five highest ranked restaurants given 3 Chef’s Hats. Two Chef’s Hats were dished out to those ranked 6th to 12th while the rest of the 25 received one Chef Hat.

The top five restaurants in Singapore, as ranked by the judges, are II Lido (Sentosa), The Cliff (Sentosa), Mezza9 (Grand Hyatt), Senso and Lei Garden (Chijmes).

The panel of judges had included Mr. Christopher Kilaniotis, Managing Director at Cartier Singapore, Mr. Colin Kelly, Regional Director at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars (Asia Pacific), Dr Olaf Duebel, Managing Director at Volkswagen Group Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mr. Ben Pedley, Executive Director at Investment strategist LGT Bank Asia, Mr. Wee Tiong Han, President of Singapore Polo Club, and Mr. Tim Charlton, Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Business Review Magazine and organizer of this Awards.