The restaurant only seats 32 diners a night, to ensure a memorable experience for all. — EAT AND COOK
It is 3pm on a Friday afternoon, nearly three hours before Kuala Lumpur eatery Eat and Cook opens its doors to eager beavers lucky enough to have snagged reservations at the highly-prized restaurant.
In the open kitchen, aptly dubbed The Stage, an army is at work. There is the usual clatter of pots and pans, some chopping and the hiss and sizzle of food being stirred and fried, all led in symphonic harmony by the conductors of this entire culinary orchestra – chef-owners Lee Zhe Xi and Soh Yong Zhi.
In many ways, it is almost preternatural how commanding Lee and Soh are, given that both are only 25 years old – the age at which many chefs are only just beginning to find their feet in a restaurant kitchen.
Then again, Lee and Soh are no ordinary Malaysian chefs. The duo is after all the raison d’ être behind Eat and Cook’s phenomenal rise to the top. The restaurant, which only opened in February 2021, recently bagged the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2021 American Express One To Watch award. The award is typically given out to a restaurant that is considered the hottest in Asia.
Eat and Cook is the brainchild of four friends who joined forces to open an eatery that has quickly gained international adulation. From left: Lee, Harry, Soh and Steve. — ART CHEN/The Star
The icing on the cake? After less than a year in operation, Eat and Cook also made it onto Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2021 extended list (which features restaurants ranked 51 to 100), landing at a respectable No 81.
“To be honest, we were not ready for this and we didn’t expect to get so much recognition so soon. When we got the email from Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, we actually thought it was a scam, because it came as such a huge surprise,” says the chatty, affable Lee.
Eat and Cook’s ascent hasn’t been a surprise to just Lee; the reality is this cult restaurant’s success wasn’t something anyone seemed to have been expecting.
The reasons for this are manifold: all the other Malaysian restaurants on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list have been in operation for at least five years. Many have solid financial backers and have aesthetic qualities that far surpass Eat and Cook’s simple set-up in a location that is as unassuming as its founders.
So just how exactly did Eat and Cook catapult to fame?
Soh (left) and Lee wanted an open kitchen where they could really connect with diners. — ART CHEN/The Star
The start
Lee and Soh both received culinary training at Berjaya University College. This is also where they met their classmate Steve Lee. Steve introduced the two to his brother Harry and the foursome quickly bonded over a shared love of eating and yes, cooking.
“When we were younger, there was a three-storey building in front of Steve’s house that we used to daydream about. Back then, we thought ‘Okay, maybe five or 10 years later, if we want to open a restaurant, each of us could take a floor and do the cuisine that we want,’” says Lee.
Although that initial pipe dream didn’t materialise, something far better emerged instead during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, Steve was working as a chef in the Maldives while Lee and Soh were employed in hotels. All were casualties of the pandemic, but instead of wallowing, they decided the time was ripe for risk-taking.
They opened the first iteration of Eat and Cook in 2020 in a nearly-abandoned shopping mall and quickly became hugely popular, despite only seating less than 10 patrons a night.
“It was very low-cost, it was just me and Soh in the kitchen and the rental was very low, so it was much easier for us to handle,” says Lee.
Last year, Lee, Soh, Steve and Harry decided to join forces and open Eat and Cook in the current shop lot that it occupies in Bukit Jalil. In this new outfit, Steve and Harry handle the financial and marketing aspects of the operation while Lee and Soh focus on the food.
“We had the same aim in that we wanted to do something when we were still young. Everyone kept saying, ‘Why are you expanding during the pandemic?’ But we started during the pandemic so it made sense to expand during the pandemic too,” says Lee, laughing.
The restaurant typically serves up about 17 courses in the degustation menu. Pictured here is the clam brulee with pickled clam.
The four also faced their fair share of naysayers who questioned why they weren’t moving to a more salubrious neighbourhood like Bangsar or Ampang. But Lee and Soh – who both live in Bukit Jalil – say they just love the area and didn’t want to budge on the location.
“It only took us one day to decide. We had a lot of options, but Harry brought us here and after we had a site viewing, we just decided to take it,” says Lee.
Harry says that although he and his brother were the ones investing the money in the business, they had no qualms about the location of choice.
“Ultimately, we’re investing in people. So we didn’t think too much, if they wanted to do it, my brother and I felt they should just do it, because if the food is good, people will come,” says Harry.
The food
And it is the food that has continued to impress well-heeled diners time and time again. At Eat and Cook, the approach to food is not to highlight any particular cuisine but to elevate each course (17 small courses in total in the degustation menu) with Malaysian accents, flavour profiles, memories and cooking styles.
The eatery pays homage to Malaysian ingredients, flavours and memories and this is evident in courses like egg, kaya and soy sauce which is inspired by the runny eggs in kopitiams. — EAT AND COOK“We want to highlight out culture – we have to respect our roots and where we come from and as Malaysians, we should tell the world that Malaysia doesn’t only have nasi lemak. Our ingredients are special, our flavours are special because we are influenced by different countries like Portugal, Thailand, India, China – that’s what makes Malaysia so unique,” says the patriotic Lee.
Steve adds that there is also a pragmatic reason why this approach makes far more sense in a restaurant setting.
“If we cook French food or some other cuisine, how can we ever compete with real French people? They eat French food every single day, we just imagine the flavours and try to recreate it because we are not French and didn’t grow up in the culture.
“But if we use Malaysian ingredients and stories, we can make it 100% better – that’s why we chose to cook in this way,” he says.
The menu is updated every three or four months and each update is called a chapter, because it signifies something different – whether that’s the cuisine inspired by a particular region in Malaysia or simply the food memories that form part of Lee and Soh’s childhood.
“A lot of dining experiences in Malaysia are about ‘I’m here, let me take some photos and that’s it’. And people don’t really remember what they’re eating. So that’s the reason why we are putting so much into building stories into the experience – so it’s about culture, flavours and memories,” says Lee.
But putting together the food is no simple task. Lee says it takes him and Soh at least four months to develop each new chapter of the menu and each day involves coming in at 10am and finishing up at between 2am to 3am. An early night is when they clock out at 12am!
Lee and Soh have also made a commitment to sourcing their produce directly from farmers and fishermen and finding ingredients when they are in their prime.
The cucur udang with peanut butter takes three days to assemble.
“We try so hard to work with farmers and fishermen and find what’s seasonal. Like okay, we don’t have spring or autumn in Malaysia, so what is the meaning of seasonality? It is the best time to have a certain fish – like when the fish is at its fattiest or the sea is filled with it.
“Like in August, scallops and crabs will be widely available in Tawau and Sandakan in Sabah so we’ll definitely choose that for our future menu. So that’s what we mean by seasonality,” he explains.
Lee says building connections is crucial to getting the best produce and he is unabashed about talking to literally anyone willing to give him the time of day, as he wants to forge a network of producers who care about local ingredients as much as he does.
“The first thing we do is travel all over Malaysia, like I go to a lot of farms myself to find out how farmers grow fruit and vegetables. The second thing is connections, connections, connections. I will talk to anyone who helps me learn and grow, I will just ask until I get answers and connections,” he says.
So what can you expect to find on Eat and Cook’s menu? Well, innovation, uniqueness and a certain, indiscernible je ne sais quoi so telling of the best kind of food.
The current chapter for instance is divided into the earth, land, sea and the end (dessert). Each segment celebrates different things. The earth component for instance, features three corn courses – from white corn in Cameron Highlands to yellow corn in Ipoh and red corn from Serdang.
Some of the meals are inspired from the chefs’ childhood memories, like this dish which of ubi, gula apong and coconut which Lee says reminds him of something his grandmother used to make.
To begin, there are also familiar options like egg, kaya and soy sauce, essentially an homage to the humble kopitiam fare so many Malaysians begin their day with but elevated and reconfigured to stratospheric new levels.
Courses like clam brulee with pickled clam and whisky shiao xing foam meanwhile has hints of ginger, an herbaceous undertone and a delicious, lightly alcoholic quality that adds spirit (pun intended) to the course.
Surprises also abound in meals like the cucur udang bunga with peanut butter (which takes three days to put together), basically a nirvanic version of the street side fare so many of us are familiar with.
A meal at Eat and Cook is also complemented by a comprehensive wine pairing menu, ably put together by experienced in-house sommelier Agnel Sathiananthan.
Pressure and expectations
According to Lee, each chapter of the menu takes four months to put together. — EAT AND COOKReaching such pinnacles so fast and so young can often be dizzying and overwhelming for even the most intrepid chefs. But Lee says in that respect, he and Soh and Steve and Harry have their feet on the ground and their sights on the future.
“Of course there is pressure for us to grow up a little faster because there is more attention on us now. So people have expectations for each of our chapters, so for us it’s about figuring out how we can make the next chapter better. So we try really hard to create an experience which fulfils everyone’s expectations. I think that’s a good thing for us, because it keeps us on our toes,” says Lee.
To keep the experience at Eat and Cook unique and memorable, dine-ins are limited to 32 people a night (divided into two seatings). Lee says this is done by design and the aim is to forge relationships with diners and remove the barriers that often separate chefs from their customers – something the team is committed to doing.
“Everything is naked in front of you, you can see exactly how we make it. There is no secret behind it and I think we should be doing more of this in Malaysia – building more intimate connections with the people that we serve,” says Lee.
Lee says one of the key things he has learnt is that he and his team have to constantly strive to improve. — EAT AND COOKMoving forward, Lee and the others say that their next goal is an obvious one: they want to leverage on what they have built and work towards getting Eat and Cook listed on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants top 50 list.
“We are quite proud of what we’ve accomplished and the recognition we’ve gotten as Malaysian chefs in Malaysia. I hope this inspires passionate young chefs and shows them we have a chance of putting Malaysia on the map.
“So we are trying to improve everything, not just the food but the whole experience. We are trying our best to give more than 100% every single day and the rest we will leave to the judges. The main thing we’ve learnt from this is to improve, improve and improve all the time!” says Lee.
