American “fine-casual” burger chain Shake Shack opened its first outlet in Singapore last April at Jewel Changi Airport, which spawned insane queues. But good news, this February 7 at 7.30pm, it will open a second outlet in a more centralised area, at Neil Road in between Tanjong Pagar and Keong Saik.

SS’s spacious single-storey second branch is housed in a building that used to be Tiger Balm’s factory and eBay’s Singapore headquarters. It spans 450 sqm, with 138 seats. It has a slightly smaller seating capacity than the Jewel outlet, which occupies two floors.

This is the loveliest Shake Shack eatery we have seen around the world so far. As it’s located in a historical, artsy neighbourhood, the Shack’s interior design team modelled the space accordingly: the building retained its ‘20s plantation windows, while rattan fans cool down diners in the air-conditioned space. Peranakan tiles, pink terrazzo tables tinged with rose gold and wooden benches similar to the ones at SS’s original Madison Square Park outlet in New York complete the restaurant’s look. If we are gonna splurge on atas burgers, we want to enjoy them in a chio place like this.

In an homage to Tiger Balm, there is a tiger mural at the back of the restaurant. The area in front of it is also designed to be partitioned for Shake Shack to host art workshops for the public in the future.

Spot the gigantic mural with the lucky mythical beast qilin and Peranakan accents at the side of the building, which was hand-painted by Singaporean artist Sam Lo (pictured) over 10 days. She tells us she trawled the neighbourhoods around Neil Road to get inspiration from the Peranakan shophouses for the mural.

Like the Jewel outlet, you can get the same crowd-pleasing Shack Shack fare like a ShackBurger, cheese fries and hand-spun milkshakes at this new branch. But the latter also has exclusive new items, like two new flavours for their frozen custard desserts (called Concretes), and a Chick’n Shack chicken burger (Singapore is the first in Southeast Asia to get this).

This refreshing vanilla frozen custard (frocus?) is blended with lychees, raspberry and shortbread (right in pic), before being spiked with lime zest. It’s inspired by the humble hawker dessert lychee shaved ice, though it’s far more shiok; the rich, creamy custard contrasts nicely with the tangy raspberry compote with whole berries, while buttery shortbread bits add some crunch.

The other new Concrete flavour is this sesame one, which has vanilla custard blended with black sesame paste and brownie chunks from local bakery Plain Vanilla, plus a smattering of gold-dusted chocolate bits and black sesame seeds. Heady and earthy enough, but we find the berry-flavoured Eye of the Tiger more satisfying for our sweltering heat.

This ain’t a McChicken burger; Shake Shack’s iteration of a chicken burger has a thick slab of sous vide and fried chicken breast patty slotted in between potato flour buns with pickles, lettuce and a generous smear of buttermilk herb mayonnaise. It’s pretty good - the patty is succulent and crispy, and moreish with piquant pickles tamed by the creamy mayo. If you don’t eat beef, this chicken burger is a decent pick.

The opening of Shake Shack’s second outlet will definitely ease some of the traffic at its Jewel branch, and it is also centrally located in an easily accessible neighbourhood (good news, the new outlet is open till midnight on Fridays and Saturdays). We like the lush, beautiful interior which references the history of its building and neighbourhood, and the new Concrete flavours and Chick’n Shack chicken burger ain’t too bad either.

#01-01, 89 Neil Rd, S088849. Open daily. Sun-Thurs 11am-10pm, Fri & Sat 11am-12am. www.shakeshack.com.sg.

PHOTOS: KELVIN CHIA/ YIP JIEYING