History comes alive at Raffles Hotel, which opens today after a two-year-long facelift, and there is impeccable service to match

In its heyday in the late 1800s to early 1900s, Raffles Hotel was a high society nexus of the British and the well-heeled. But today, after being closed for more than two years for a major restoration, everyone is invited to schmooze, linger and savour a slice of Singapore's living heritage.

From the get-go, you will feel as if you have stepped out of your taxi into a time warp: granite gravel instead of asphalt is retained at the driveway to the lobby entrance to hark back to the days when horse-drawn carriages formed the main mode of transportation.

When you look up at the imposing facade, you are overwhelmed by a sense of history that seems to come alive before your very eyes. All the pomp and pageantry of this British outpost was a guiding rubric in the architecture of this more than 132-year-old building, which was leased in 1887 by a group of Armenian brothers called the Sarkies.

Your first point of contact with all things luxe and escapist is when the towering, turbaned Narajan Singh opens the door of your Comfort taxi. "Welcome to the Raffles, Madam," he intones in a deep baritone. He has been with the hotel since early 1992 and is today its brand ambassador.

Only Sikhs with a mandatory height requirement of 1.9m have been employed as Raffles doormen since the establishment of the hotel and so ubiquitous is Mr Singh's image that it is even to be found in the Raffles Boutique, emblazoned on souvenir plushies, keychains and umbrellas.

When you think about how Mr Singh has greeted, with the same benevolence, the likes of royalty such as Queen Elizabeth II and the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton, you feel nothing short of special. His thick beard, piercing eyes and military-inspired uniform with epaulettes and full regalia set the tone for your dalliance with Singapore history.

Apart from majestic ficus trees with burgeoning girths that could have been growing here even before 1887, when the building was re-imagined as a grand hotel, and myriad palm trees and flowering shrubs of every tropical stripe, you will also see the grand dame's distinctively British architectural features such as its pilasters, Corinthian capitals and fluted columns in the cavernous lobby space and throughout the building's palisades.

Located at lobby level are the storied Tiffin Room and Writers Bar. La Dame de Pic by French chef Anne-Sophie Pic, who has three Michelin stars for her French restaurant, is now also strategically sited at the lobby level. This is her first fine-dining restaurant in Asia and one that shares the same provenance as the hotel - her culinary lineage can be traced back to 1889 in France, when her great-grandmother opened Maison Pic in Valence, in south-western France.

According to one of the conservation project's chief interior designers, Mr Edmond Bakos, a partner and managing director at Champalimaud Design in New York - which has an exhaustive portfolio of restoring grand dame hotels globally - the visual language of the restoration had to stay true to classical architecture.

"We've actually done very little to modify the exterior of the building. Inside, right down to little details such as the switches, the sense of history was carefully and consciously preserved."

The switches are a defining feature as Raffles Hotel was one of the first structures outfitted with electricity at the turn of the 20th century, something the superpower at the time, the British, brought to key buildings in their colonies throughout the world. Today, these have been cannily tricked out to function seamlessly with an Apple iPad to control the lighting in each suite's (no more "guest rooms") three sections - the parlour, bedroom and bath area. And yes, every suite (all 115 of them, up from 103 pre-restoration) retains the original delightfully creaky eucalyptus floorboards that date back to 1895 and the oh-so-lofty ceilings.

When I entered my suite on the second floor, I headed straight for the bath area, as I learnt from Mr Bakos that these parts were built from scratch. White milky marble covered every surface of the vanity area where there was an old-world standalone bathtub, and extended into the toilet and the shower room as well. This created the perfect foil to the warm woods of the parlour and bedroom areas.

But the most welcome feature of the suite was its sheer quietude. You can actually hear yourself think, while sounds some distance away occasionally tether you to the fact that you are still in the noisy, bustling city centre. Mr Bakos explained that, thanks to evolving building science, double-glazing technology was employed during this restoration so that every suite would have a certain level of noise-cancelling, which could not be attained at the first restoration in 1989.

But what you will not see is the innovation - both in technology and service - which differs from the first restoration in 1989. These have been very sensitively incorporated to the point of being almost invisible, so as not to detract from the visual historical narrative.

Every room now has a Digivalet Guestroom Management System (GRMS) which does the work of three hotel staff. There are nine types of suites, starting with the studio and all the way to the presidential. With the in-suite iPad, guests can bypass the butler service and order food and book spa sessions at the new Raffles Spa.

As a guest at Raffles, expect staff to take service excellence to another level. I can vouch for that. When I called room service at the unearthly hour of midnight, my piping hot prawn dumpling soup - "no pork stock please, it has to be in an unadulterated bouillon made from only chicken or fish bones" - arrived in exactly 25 minutes, as promised. And the food tray was discreetly and unobtrusively removed while I steeped my world-weary self in a long, lazy stupor in the bathtub.

The next morning, my newly tailored chiffon blouse threatened to blow up into a major wardrobe malfunction when stray threads got enmeshed in the zipper at the back and made a tear in the fabric. My butler on duty, Ms Cao Yujun, 36, didn't so much as bat an eyelid when she saw the gaping hole and fixed it with two tiny safety pins. She even offered to sew it up with matching coloured thread. "I can get it done for you while you wait in the room Madam, not to worry." I was just speechless. When I tried to give her something for all her trouble, she declined, almost chortling: "No need for notes, Madam. A written note will do."

The heritage landmark has had quite a bit of work done. But it was executed delicately, with respect and sensitivity, so that all you will see at the great reveal is the 132-year-old grand dame's bewitching character.

• The writer's stay was sponsored by Raffles Hotel.