March 12, 2025
KUALA LUMPUR – At Ministry of Crab Kuala Lumpur, there is a flurry of activity. In the kitchen, chefs are testing out crab recipes and doing numerous dry-runs to ensure perfection. In the dining area, a bunch of people are scattered around tables, heads bent over laptops.
In the centre of all the magic (and chaos) is chef Dharshan Munidasa, the chef and entrepreneur behind this famed Sri Lankan-based restaurant.
Ministry of Crab is iconic in Sri Lanka and according to Dharshan, the original restaurant is so oversubscribed that each day, 150 people are turned away. Since its inception in Colombo, international offshoots have included outlets in Mumbai, Chengdu, Bangkok, the Maldives and Singapore. The most recent addition is the Kuala Lumpur edition, which just opened.
“South-East Asia has been on our radar for awhile now. And with KL, I feel like the dining scene has changed dramatically since we first came to look at a site for the restaurant in 2020 and that was just five years ago,” says Dharshan.
Dharshan’s thoughts are right on the money.
The Kuala Lumpur dining scene has changed dramatically over the past decade, gaining heft and volume and a glamorous, cosmopolitan sheen to it.
What was once an entirely local purview has quickly transformed into a regional dining hub, bulging with global, international offerings, chefs and restaurant brands.
In many ways, Kuala Lumpur is quickly positioning itself as an international culinary hot spot, similar to Singapore and Bangkok in the region. In fact, if you’ve had a pulse on the KL dining scene in the past few months, you will have quickly realised that international chefs and restaurant brands are fast cottoning on to this.
This year alone, the KL dining scene has seen or will see the opening of Sri Lankas’ famed MInistry of Crab; the launch of Japan-based teppanyaki restaurant Benihana; as well as chef-led restaurants like famed Thai Michelin-starred stalwart Thitid Tassanakajohn, better known as Ton’s As I Am Restaurant and celebrated Japanese chef Hidemichi Seki’s KL restaurant K. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
How dining has changed in KL
The increase in international openings in KL is in tandem with the city’s growth as a regional dining hot spot. While KL was once viewed as Singapore’s poor sister, it is gradually coming into its own as a gustatory hub in its own right.
Part of this has to do with the increase in top-tier Malaysian chefs like Darren Teoh of the two Michelin-starred progressive Malaysian restaurant Dewakan and Darren Chin of the one Michelin-starred DC by Darren Chin as well as younger Malaysian chefs like Shaun Ng of Hide KL as well as Aidan Low of Akar Dining, all of whom have invariably worked in some of the top restaurants around the globe.
Upon coming home, these well-educated chefs now strive to craft high-quality meals and deliver the international standards developed from their global pedagogy. In doing so, they have created an increasingly cosmopolitan dining ecosystem in the city.
In tandem with this shift is the growing number of MalaysIans who have travelled overseas and attained an appetite for international fare. Some are well-heeled epicureans who have been spurred to open their own restaurants in collaboration with top chefs from around the globe.
Additionally, since the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects have waned, KL has also emerged as a destination of choice for tourists. Last year, the city was the 10th most visited in the world.
“I definitely think with an increase in tourist arrivals into Malaysia and Malaysians who are exposed to the amazing dining experience abroad, we are getting more sophisticated as a society. Hence the increase in interest to dine in these establishments or even for people to open their favourite restaurants from their travels,” says brand consultant Ferhat Nazri who owns FNA Consulting, which counts multiple restaurants as clients.
As a whole, Malaysians are also innate foodies with very robust palates and an adventurous spirit when it comes to eating. This makes them the ideal denizens to spring new concepts and ideas on, especially given that so many diners have travelled abroad in the past few years.
“Malaysians are huge foodies – they love to eat, whether that’s at a pasar malam or mamak or a high-end restaurant. Food is in our blood. And we have also noticed that people increasingly like to eat with their families. That’s why we are bringing in the Japanese teppanyaki concept Benihana to KL, so people can enjoy eating teppanyaki with their families,” says Kesavan Purusotman who runs the Continuum Hospitality Group. Kesavan will be bringing in the Japan-based Benihana restaurant brand to KL in March 2025.
Value and allure
Travelling abroad and being more global also means many Malaysians have a better sense of the value attached to a meal, whether that’s the value of the produce or the value of the work that has gone into crafting a dish.
“I think when we first looked at KL as a potential location for expansion in 2020, Ministry of Crab might have been perceived as being too expensive. But our crab prices are not based on what we want to charge, it’s based on what the crab cost is. So at that time, in many people’s view, it was too expensive.
“But this time, I have come around KL and dined in different restaurants and now I think we’re not going to be that expensive compared to other good restaurants.
“I think locals’ perception of value has changed and they have become more global. Because the culinary offerings have gone up and people going out and spending at these restaurants have taken up and accepted the price,” says Dharshan.
Many top international chefs also look at fitting into the local scene by introducing restaurants that add star chef appeal to the local landscape without charging an arm and a leg.
“We’re planning a restaurant and bar in KL called As I Am, which will open in a few months. It’s going to be very fun, casual, super tasty, and affordable. That’s the concept we want to bring — something that truly connects with local diners. We don’t want to be just an international chef brand that comes in and charges crazy prices.
“We want to be part of the community, a place where locals feel at home and want to visit often. Hopefully, both Sood in Penang and As I Am in KL will be that kind of place for Malaysian diners,” says Ton, a decorated Thai chef whose Bangkok restaurants Nusara and Le Du are both ranked in the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024 list.
In the past few years, KL has also been buoyed by the arrival of the Michelin Guide, which has added lustre and shine to the local landscape and given chefs something to aim for.
Last year’s Michelin Guide reveal in Kuala Lumpur also showed that international chefs – like Guillaume Depoortere of Molina KL – were getting more attention. Molina KL was opened by Datuk Alex Tan, in collaboration with chef Sidney Schutte, who owns a two Michelin-starred restaurant in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Molina is his first Malaysian outpost and under Depoortere’s stewardship, earned a Michelin star just five months into its inception.
Much like Bangkok and Singapore, which are filled with international chefs, the fact that Belgian chef Depoortere was able to earn a Michelin star in Malaysia has provided an incentive for more international chefs to follow suit and perhaps earn a star or two in the process.
“We are a very European restaurant so everything we do is very different to all the other restaurants in Malaysia, because this kind of cuisine is very, very new here. So we do bring something different to the table.
“So if we would be an inspiration to others to open restaurants in KL and get other international chefs to come here and see that we succeeded, that would be amazing,” says Marjolein van den Ing, director of Molina KL.
All of this put together has made Malaysia and more specifically Kuala Lumpur, a very appealing option for regional dining and this in turn has opened the floodgates in terms of international restaurant brands and Michelin-starred chefs looking to stamp their mark on the local food scene.
“Malaysia is becoming a hotspot for international restaurants, similar to what happened in Bangkok and Singapore. I see the Malaysian food scene now as something similar to Bangkok’s food scene 10 years ago. A lot of local and international chefs are becoming interested and investing in restaurants here, and I believe Malaysia will soon become one of the hottest dining destinations in South-East Asia.
“Today, Malaysia’s food scene is very exciting for me. I’m very, very glad that I can jump into this vibrant food scene,” says Ton.
Ton’s views are echoed by Kesavan who says, “I 100% believe that change is happening right now and in the next few years, we could be poised to overtake Bangkok and Singapore as a global dining hotspot,” says Kesavan.