This year, wellness restaurant Fittie Sense marks its ninth year in business. To celebrate the occasion and the brand’s ability to survive and thrive in the notoriously fickle Telawi stretch in Kuala Lumpur’s Bangsar area, owners Victor Yap and Su Mei Lim decided to renovate the place and do a menu facelift.
Yap is an F&B veteran who also runs popular eateries like Peaches & Cream while Lim is a certified yoga instructor who is keen to build a wellness community around Fittie Sense.
“After nine years, I thought it was the right opportunity and occasion to celebrate by doing a little self-care for our shop with a renovation and an expanded menu as well. So this menu celebrates us surviving the Covid-19 pandemic and building ourselves up back again,” says Yap.
The terms “healthy eating” and “wellness cuisine” are often synonymous with other monikers like “boring” and “bland”. A salad does not inspire sonnets in quite the same way a steak might. Which is why Yap worked especially hard to create a menu that uplifts and nourishes without compromising on quality or flavour.
The current menu is also a reflection of present zeitgeists and appetites in the wellness space and marks a necessary evolution in keeping with the owners’ understanding of what their customers want.
“After Covid-19, we see that a lot of customers are now more knowledgeable about what they eat and how they want to nourish their bodies. And one thing that we take away from this is different people have different strategies and requirements of how they see wellness or how they treat wellness for themselves.
“One thing that you see in this new menu versus the previous menu is that we’ve taken a more ‘flexitarian’ approach. A lot of our vegan and vegetarian dishes now come with the option of adding more non-vegan proteins.
“That opens up the menu in another direction which I think will be very useful for our regulars and keeps things interesting as well,” says Yap.
Yap himself eats at the restaurant about five times a week so he is meticulous about ensuring that everything is up to his exacting standards.
From what’s on offer, try the Roast Capsicum Caponata (RM34) which features an entire bell pepper stuffed with millet-quinoa pilaf and Sicilian-style vegetables layered around the base.
The caponata is the highlight here and features a vivacious vegetable party undulating with hearty, vegetal notes and a robust tomatoey undercurrent to tide it all together.
Dip some of the millet-quinoa into the vegetable base and enjoy the rich confluence of flavours and the general sense of nourishment that seeps into the meal.
For something a little more indulgent, go for the Lemon Mascarpone Cream with Wild Seabass Fillet (RM57).
This creamy pasta dish serves up an option of either spaghetti or konjac noodles for those looking for a low-carb, low-calorie alternative.
“We did this dish as a special for Christmas but a lot of people have been asking for it, so we’ve made it a permanent choice on the new menu.
“The strategy with this dish is we want something a little bit more luxurious so that if people want to come in for celebrations, this is a dish that would be suited for them,” explains Yap.
This dish is a winner on every front – the seabass (which is sourced from Kuala Selangor) is firm and supple with tender, yielding flesh.
The pasta meanwhile is coated in a hedonistically creamy, garlicky mascarpone sauce that is indulgent and packed with flavour. It’s the sort of dish that is so delightful, you’ll forget the word “diet” even exists in your lifestyle.
Perhaps one of the biggest evolutions on the menu has been the introduction of a steak dish, in the form of the FS Steak (RM128).
The dish features 200g of grass-fed sirloin laid over a bed of sauteed greens, paired with a choice of either chimichurri, mushroom cream sauce or black pepper gravy.
“There may be some dishes that a few years ago we would not have dared to put on the menu, like the new grass-fed steak, because people might say ‘Oh, is it actually healthy?’
“But we take the approach where if you choose the right quality meat, like a grass-fed pasture-raised sirloin steak, which has a higher percentage of healthy fats versus conventional grain-fed beef, then it’s a good source of protein,” says Yap.
He adds: “We have the options. It’s up to you to choose what works for you.”
The steak here has been cooked to absolute perfection and retains a lovely char on the surface that then yields to incredibly juicy, melt-in-the-mouth meat within. If you’re opting for the chimichurri sauce, you’ll also get a herbaceous, astringent, livewire of a sidekick that taps into the meat’s natural attributes and elevates it further.
The vegetables layered on the base are both delicious and meaningful because they help sluice through the richness of the meat and offer a healthy, nutritious distraction that ultimately result in a complete eating experience.
If you’re familiar with Yap, you’ll know that all his restaurants are renowned for serving up an array of fabulous desserts. Fittie Sense is no different, except that every single sweet treat here is gluten-free and devoid of refined sugars.
From what’s on offer, try the Keto Tiramisu (RM29) and Low-Carb Chocolate Whey Torte (RM24).
The former is made up of almond meal, butter, erythritol (natural sugar substitute), cream, kampung eggs, mascarpone, espresso and vanilla.
Yap says one of the biggest challenges he faced was making gluten-free sponge fingers entirely by himself.
And yet, the proof is in the pudding. This tiramisu is rich and bewitching and while the sponge is a little denser than you might be used to, all the flavours of a classic tiramisu still come through wonderfully here.
The chocolate whey torte meanwhile is composed of 70% dark chocolate, espresso, kampung eggs, erythritol, olive oil and whey protein.
One slice has about nine grams of protein, which is probably the highest amount of protein you’ll find in any cake.
The torte is very, very good – the chocolate flavours are really prominent here and there is a stolidity and denseness to the torte that gives it substance, heft and a wholly addictive allure.
Yap has deliberately kept Fittie Sense as a stand-alone restaurant because he says it is difficult to expand, given that he is operating within a niche market and every meal is crafted from scratch in order to fit the restaurant’s ethos.
Which is why the menu overhaul is something that makes him feel incredibly happy and satisfied.
“I think those who followed us from the beginning will know that we started with a very small, simple menu. So I think our current menu is probably the most complete menu in the nine years we have been here,” says Yap, smiling.
