Favourite Wine and Food places in Kuala Lumpur

20th August 2015

Got an email from an overseas IWFS member in Tokyo asking for advice on where to eat in Kuala Lumpur (NB I am IWFS KL Secretary). I wrote back listing my favourites off the top of the head - places I would recommend to the general visitor to be able to reasonably go find on their own. And thought my reply might make a useful post. Anyone got any favourite places to add?

Dear 

I received your email and am happy to give some suggestions for food and wine in Kuala Lumpur.

However, there are so many styles of cuisine here in Malaysia that it is difficult to give general advice. 

Maybe I can point you to my blog "Fine Food and Wine in Kuala Lumpur" which reports on restaurants I have visited personally and had a great time (or not!!)

The address is 

http://klfoodandwine.blogspot.com/

For fine food and wine, my initial suggestions would be Sage (The Gardens, Mid Valley) and Cilantro (Micasa, off Jalan Tun Razak). The food is consistently excellent, the wine lists are pretty good and both open for lunch (though phone first to check). Slightly further afield is Soleil where the fish courses are excellent. The DC Restaurant is also worth searching out, though a bit difficult to get to from City Centre. 

I also recommend the newly reopened Stoked with its cast iron grill - excellent beef steak and pork ribs with some interesting Japanese tweaks by the chef. And very good selections of wine. A bit outside the city but a good destination. 

These are all clearly Western cuisine places so the wines available tend to be more extensive. With Eastern cuisine (Chinese, Indian, Malay) eateries the wine lists are not so good. The upside is that they often do not charge corkage so you can BYO. They also do not have decent glasses.  Best for Chinese cuisine - Overseas Restaurant (Jalan Imbi), Marco Polo Restaurant (Jalan Raja Laut), Noble House (Imbi), Noble Mansion (Jaya 33).

I must say that I am not a great fan of Malay cuisine. Overpoweringly spicy for my palate. It also doesn't really pair well with wine. The best is Bijan in the Jalan Ceylon area, got a reasonable wine list though this area gets a bit shady after dark. Indian cuisine, we had a great event at the Delhi Royale sometime ago. There is also a very good steakhouse on the same block called Las Vacas. Both are reported on in the Blog. Thinking about it, there is also a Malay cuisine restaurant behind this block called Songket which was quite good for food but had horrendous corkage charges for BYO wine. And their wine list was not so very good. Haven't been back there for over a year.

For Japanese cuisine...  not sure I should say anything here...  it will not match anywhere near the quality of what I guess you might expect. I have visited Tsukiji market and the sashimi was amazing. My favourites in Kuala Lumpur are Kami Sushi (Sri Hartamas for Sashimi - bit outside KL) and Kamimura (The Weld, Jalan Raja Chulan for pork). Some of the hotels offer Japanese cuisine - all are pretty much of the same standard. 

Best regards

Brian McIntyre

Hon Secretary IWFS Kuala Lumpur