Yesterday was a full circle moment for me when a group of young chefs from KL from the #KitaHorizons program came to visit JOGreen
Back in 2018, I begged, cajoled and ultimately convinced our funders Khazanah to get Darren Teoh of Dewakan to headline the Edible Festival that we were planning. Darren was the only Malaysian chef at that time who was outspoken and visibly trying to craft a local centric Malaysian culinary narrative and I was determined to make our Festival a platform for him to evangelise his message. When I posted about him joining our event I tagged a couple of young Johor chefs I had recently met : Shawn Shum and Mui Kai Quan.
It was Shawn, now the founder of KIOKU, listed on Tatler dining 's 2024 best Malaysian dining experiences who contacted me last week to arrange the visit. Mui has gone on to bigger things in KL heading up Chocha.foodstore and Shhhbuuuleee and remains a strong ally. He became not only our first customer in KL but has been invaluable in recommending other top tier chefs to become our clients as we grow our business there.
Darren unsurprisingly has been shattering glass ceilings since with Dewakan becoming the first Malaysian restaurant to be listed on Asia's top 50 best restaurants in 2019. Last year he was the first Malaysian restaurant to get 2 Michelin stars.
He is also the founder of KITA Food Festival ( make sure to catch it in September ) that happens to run the Kita Horizons program that organised the visit: "a one-of-a-kind, free-to-attend mentorship programme with farm visits, masterclasses, study groups, and cooking programmes; events which aim to inspire, advance, and broaden the horizons of a new generation of chefs."
So proud to be part of this vibrant Malaysian culinary landscape that I have always thought to be a crucial segment of Malaysia's creative economy that is now growing and nurturing each other notwithstanding being able to survive the devastation of Covid and MCO that shuttered so many businesses.
The 2018 election also ended our relationship with Khazanah as their CEO Tan Sri Azman and the entire board stepped down or more accurately, were pushed out by Mahathir with the reins for our project handed over to Medini Investment and IIB. I'll save the story of these GLC's indifference and downright treachery for another time as all I want to think about right now is the elation that I feel about the strong local, Malaysian narrative that has taken root in our growing culinary landscape. I'm thrilled to be interacting wiih our culinary creatives here in JB, KL, and even Penang who are also engaging with their peers in other Asian cities - this year we've hosted visits from Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Taiwan.