Vintage watches, coffee and cake: Meet the couple behind Singapore’s Reference Room
At Reference Room on Tras Street, Julian Chen and Claire Lim have brought together their passions for watch collecting and baking, creating a place where customers can browse, linger and connect.
At Reference Room, Julian Chen and Claire Lim hope to create a space where visitors can discover vintage watches, enjoy a coffee and stay for a conversation. (Photo: CNA/Kelvin Chia)
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On a street lined with fine-dining restaurants, cocktail bars and social media darling cafes, the last thing you’d expect to find is a vintage watch retailer.
Yet along Tras Street in Tanjong Pagar, Reference Room has taken root at number 46, surrounded by popular dining spots like Cafe Mary Grace and Burma Social.
To be fair, Reference Room isn’t just your average vintage watch retailer. It’s also a bona fide cafe that serves Common Man coffee, TWG tea and cakes baked in-house.
The concept is the brainchild of Julian Chen, 31, and Claire Lim, 28, who are partners in life and in business.
Since opening in mid-September, Reference Room has attracted a steady stream of visitors – from watch enthusiasts to cafe hoppers in search of their matcha fix.
When CNA Luxury visited a week after the opening, Chen said he was happy with the response.
“People started to come in, and when they tried the food, many of them were pleasantly surprised,” he said. “I think the expectation for a hybrid [concept] is that the food is an afterthought, so it’s not going to be very good. But we put in quite a bit of effort to make sure that it’s good.”
The menu features seven cakes, all prepared by Lim. These range from classics such as tiramisu and carrot cake to more contemporary creations like lychee rose tea cake and coffee walnut loaf.
There are also coffees, teas, alcoholic drinks and savoury bar snacks.
On the watch side, Chen received support from his existing customers. Through his Instagram account, Reference Room, he has been selling collectible timepieces and, perhaps more importantly, building a community of like-minded enthusiasts.
His fondness for Piaget watches, in particular, has earned him a loyal following online. A post featuring an assortment of Piaget dials in August garnered more than 800 likes, despite his account having just over 2,500 followers then.
The business has also welcomed walk-in customers, from overseas visitors seeking out watch retailers to local families who stumble upon it while exploring the neighbourhood.
“There was a dad who walked in with his two children,” Chen recalled. “He was just bringing the kids out for dessert, and they saw that we had food. He liked watches, but not his kids. So he tried his luck, asking his kids if they wanted to dine in.”
As it happened, a yellow gold Audemars Piguet watch from the 1990s, with a fan-shaped open-heart display at 6 o’clock, caught his eye. So did a rose gold Patek Philippe Calatrava from the same decade, with a salmon-coloured guilloche dial. He ended up buying both.
Another family stumbled upon a Rolex Precision from the 1950s, featuring a white gold bracelet and diamond-set bezel. Its dial, Chen said, was in “super good condition… I believe it was bought for someone’s mum, but the mum didn’t wear it so it was left in a safe [all these years].”
The woman bought the watch and promptly slipped it onto her daughter’s wrist.
THE DESIRE FOR HUMAN CONNECTION
Before setting up Reference Room, Chen was a co-founder of a company in the food packaging industry. Watches, meanwhile, were a personal passion. When he left the company in 2025, he began looking for his next venture.
His experiences at pre-owned watch shops elsewhere in Singapore left much to be desired. In some of those shops, he said, “You see a watch from the external display, you go in and you try it on. After that it’s just about [negotiating] the price. If you don’t want it, you often feel the pressure to leave because otherwise you’d just be lingering.”
He believed there had to be a better way.
“I thought of… a place that would be accessible to people who know or don’t know about watches,” he said. “And personally, I really like talking to people and getting to know them, regardless of whether it’s about watches.”
He envisioned a space that would combine a cafe with a watch gallery, where visitors could enjoy a coffee, browse the collection or simply have a conversation with him and Lim.
Around this time, Chen met Lim, who had recently returned to Singapore after spending nine years working in Australia’s F&B and hospitality industry. Her love of baking began early – at 15, she started a home-based business selling cakes and pastries. She later trained at SHATEC and Le Cordon Bleu to hone her skills.
The pair spent considerable time searching for a suitable location. “Initially we had a unit signed at Amoy Street, but it fell through,” said Chen. “We are thankful because we like Tras Street a whole lot more.”
They fell in love with the shophouse’s high ceilings and skylight, which became a focal point of the space.
Combining a watch retailer with a cafe might seem like a straightforward idea, but it remains an unusual concept among Singapore’s multibrand watch dealers.
Luxury brands have explored similar ideas. Tiffany & Co, for example, opened its Blue Box Cafe at Ion Orchard in July 2026, while other boutiques offer refreshments or private hospitality spaces for clients.
One of the challenges, Chen said, was securing insurance. Because Reference Room also operates as a cafe, the pair faced premiums three times higher than those for a standalone watch retailer. They approached more than 10 insurers, but only one provided a quote.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Chen’s passion for watches was sparked not by a family member, but by a friend who bought a Cartier Santos for around S$10,000 to S$12,000 about eight years ago.
“I remember telling him, ‘Are you crazy? Like, why would you spend that much on a watch? It’s just marketing etc’. But then a year later I bought the exact same watch in a different colour.”
It was the beginning of an obsession.
The more watches he bought – and sold to fund his next purchase – the more friends he made within the watch-collecting community. “Meeting people is kind of a natural process as you acquire… You start to build connections organically,” he said.
As Chen bought and sold more watches, he began making friends within the watch-collecting community. Initially, it wasn’t about making a profit. “I had a limited amount of money, but I wanted to experience different watches, so I had to offload them. So naturally, I needed to sell some pieces to buy new ones,” he explained.
Those early experiences laid the foundation for his Instagram business. In 2023, he launched Rafflesia Vintage, named after the flower associated with Sir Stamford Raffles. He rebranded it as Reference Room in 2026, realising that the original name was not particularly suited to a cafe.
Today, Chen limits his personal collection to around 10 watches, including dress watches, pieces with unusual shapes or colourful dials, and, of course, his beloved Piagets.
For the business, Chen focuses on vintage and neo-vintage watches dating from the 1970s to the early 2000s. The collection includes familiar names such as Audemars Piguet, Cartier, Patek Philippe and Rolex.
Most watches are priced between S$5,000 and S$35,000, with many falling within the S$10,000 to S$15,000 range.
At any given time, around 50 watches are available in the store, sourced from collectors and other dealers. Some are in remarkably good condition, appearing almost untouched by time. It is a reflection of the relationships Chen has built with collectors, including some original owners.
Chen picks four watches from his collection that he believes deserve a closer look.
Cartier Tank a Vis Dual Time – S$32,000
This is a Tank a Vis from Cartier’s Collection Privee Cartier Paris (CPCP). What makes it particularly interesting is that it’s a dual-time model, with a signature floral motif on each dial, so you get two flowers. It’s manually wound, with both time zones controlled through a single crown: The first position adjusts the second time zone, while the second adjusts local time.
The case itself is relatively rare, but the dual-time configuration is even harder to find. Cartier watches have risen significantly in price, so for someone looking for something still moderately attainable, this is the sort of under-the-radar piece I’d be looking out for.
Chopard L.U.C Ref. 2107.1 – S$11,800
This is one I feel doesn’t get enough appreciation. Released in the 1990s, it has an 18K yellow gold case and a manual-winding movement, but what really makes it special is the dial. Made from individual pieces of lapis lazuli, it has a deep, faceted blue surface that changes with the light.
There are diamond markers at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock, too. I also like the compact, slightly architectural case. A sister version with a malachite dial surfaced at a Monaco Legend auction in 2025, which gives you an idea of how rarely these stone-dial versions appear.
Harry Winston Excenter Time Zone – S$18,500
Harry Winston is a name most people associate with high jewellery, but its watches from the late 1990s and early 2000s are particularly interesting. This rose gold Excenter Time Zone is manually wound, with movable lugs, a display caseback and a distinctive dual-time display. The second time zone is adjusted via a screw-down pusher, advancing one hour with each press.
You also get a five-day power reserve, day/night indicator and date. I particularly love the light blue dial and its unusual layout. It dates to the period when Max Busser was working at Harry Winston, which could make pieces from this era even more collectible.
Piaget Ref. 9591 – S$11,800
This is likely from the 1970s and combines an onyx dial with a Piaget medallion at the centre and the ultra-thin 9P movement, which was the thinnest movement of its time. But what really makes this one special is the case. The 18K yellow gold tonneau case is hand-engraved, combining different decorative techniques, including Florentine-style engraving and circular motifs.
It’s incredibly unusual and not something you see on modern pieces. There was a period when Piaget approached watchmaking very differently, combining stone dials, sculpted cases, intricate goldwork and ultra-thin movements. The artistry that went into a piece like this simply wouldn’t be available at this price today.
Source: CNA/bt
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