What it’s like to dine at Dewakan: the first and only Malaysian restaurant on ‘Asia’s 50 Best’ list
It seems simple enough to describe Dewakan as a restaurant that specialises in “modern Malaysian” cuisine, but doing so brushes over the extent to which chef Darren Teoh and his team have pioneered a new direction in the country’s fine dining scene.
When Dewakan – a fusion of the Malay words “dewa”, which means god, and ‘makan’, meaning “to eat, or simply “food” – first opened in Shah Alam 2015 – as part of an educational entrepreneurial effort at KDU University College – haute cuisine in the Malaysian capital was a very different animal compared with what it is today.
The obligatory big-ticket items on every fine dining menu, Wagyu beef, foie gras, Boston lobsters, all had to be imported from great distances to render the meal special (and to justify its sheer expense).
Dispensing with those notions entirely, Teoh instead insisted on throwing the spotlight on produce from Malaysia’s farms, seas, mountains, and jungles, positing the country’s indigenous ingredients as a bounty from God that deserves to be honoured and celebrated.
In doing so, he attracted the attention of a culinary audience who began to understand that locally sourced food could also be unusual and exciting – and word, it seems, is beginning to spread internationally.
It’s nice to be recognised ... and acknowledgement of the work we’ve done. We’ve been very consistent for the past four years and have built up what we can from strength to strength
At the awards ceremony for Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019 in Macau last week, Dewakan emerged as number 46, making it the first and only Malaysian restaurant ever to appear on the list.
“It is what it is,” Teoh says rather wearily over the phone from Paris, where he’s attending the 2019 Food & Society International Conference. “It’s nice to be recognised and it’s also good morale for the team.”
Has it reaffirmed his faith in what he’s doing, and will it push his food in a more radical direction?
“No. This is an acknowledgement of the work we’ve done – it has little to do with what our conquest is about. On one hand, we run a decent restaurant, and on the other, it’s the work we’re actually doing to bring the ingredients to the forefront: they’re separate. This won’t affect what we do.
“Look at what we’ve been doing all along – are there any risks we haven’t yet taken? We’ve been very consistent for the past four years and have built up what we can from strength to strength, and that’s the territory we’ll continue to go at.”
The weekend following the awards ceremony, it certainly appears as if it’s business as usual at Dewakan.
With Leng Yik Siang, Teoh’s second-in-command, helming the kitchen on a Saturday evening, the team quietly prepares the restaurant’s nine-course Nusantara menu and 17-course Kayangan menu.
Both tasting menus speak volumes about Teoh’s extensive research into rare Malaysian ingredients, and the grunt work that’s gone into creating dishes that are curious and unfamiliar even to most native Malaysian palates.
Diners encounter splitgill mushroom tartlets, black Bario rice porridge mixed with fermented banana and coconut milk, and steamed banana hearts brushed with salted fermented soybeans and topped with fiddlehead ferns, kerdas chips, and pickled roses.
This is fascinating, complex food that requires diners to really think about the origins of what’s on their plates
Some dishes are memorable for their exquisite delicacy – a slow-cooked red snapper in a gentle temu ginger broth, laced with selom leaf, parsley and fish oils that you add yourself, or a beautifully assembled wreath of prawns bathed in warm star fruit juice and topped with fragrant cashew leaves, dill flowers, and ulam raja (which translates to “the King’s salad”).
Others prove a little more challenging and confrontational, particularly a gamey goat tartare served with crunchy petals of compressed pumpkin, or a dessert of sweet leaf sorbet and nam nam – a fruit that grows on the trunk of the cynometra cauliflora tree, with a soapy, guava-like taste that almost defies description.
This is fascinating, complex food that requires diners to really think about the origins of what’s on their plates, be it dark, bitter chocolate harvested by the indigenous Temuan Orang Asli community in the state of Pahang or keluak (pangium edule) paste made from a poisonous fruit that be made edible only through fermentation.
It will be interesting to see how Dewakan handles a more international audience, which Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list may likely bring, but one gets the sense that Teoh will stick to his guns, regardless of who visits his restaurant.
And if this is the taste of Malaysia’s culinary future, then vive la revolution.
Dewakan
Lower Ground Floor, KDU University College, Utropolis Glenmarie, Jalan Kontraktor, U1/14, Seksyen U1, 40150, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
Dinner: Monday to Saturday – 6.30pm to 10pm
Tel: +603 5565 0767
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Chef Darren Teoh and his team’s acclaimed dishes using ‘God’s bounty’ – produce from the nation’s farms, seas, mountains and jungles – are now being recognised