Krug

Krug is the longest relationship I have with any house. On the public record it begins in December 2014, when The Star ran Krug Champagne — A Touch of Majesty, photographed at Brasserie Enfin in Oasis Square. That was two years before the formal Ambassade induction was named in print, and two years before the Krug Chef's Table opened.

What started at that first table has grown, over a decade, into a friendship between a Malaysian chef and a French maison. It has moved through three restaurant rooms and the house’s global Ambassade network, and through the two rituals Krug is known for: the Krug Single Ingredient and the Krug Music Pairing.

The Krug Ambassade: first Malaysian (June 2014)

My Ambassade status goes on the public record in June 2014. The firmest source is Men’s Uno Malaysia (Issue 216, 1 April 2016, pp. 152 to 155): “于2014年6月获邀加入此独一无二的Krug大使团队”, or “In June 2014, James Won was invited to join the Krug Ambassador team.” Time Out KL’s Now Open feature in April 2016 says the same: “In 2014, he was inducted into the exclusive Krug Ambassade network.” So does Options magazine in An Affair to Remember (Brian Cheong, c. 2016): “James Won has been a Krug Ambassador since 2014.”

The Ambassade is Krug’s own international circle of chefs, each invited to answer the year’s Krug Édition with their cooking. I was the first Malaysian in it, two years before the Krug Chef’s Table opened in Kuala Lumpur. Sin Chew Daily reported the same first in Chinese in November 2016.

The Ambassade was the relationship the maison gave me. The Krug Chef’s Table, which began at Brasserie Enfin and became a dedicated salon at Enfin in April 2016, was what that relationship made possible.

The Krug Chef’s Table at Enfin (April 2016)

In April 2016 the Ambassade became a room. Time Out KL ran Now Open: Krug Chef’s Table at Enfin by James Won (Lim Chee Wah), marking the opening of what was then Asia’s only Krug Chef’s Table, at Enfin in Menara Hap Seng.

The same piece counted the Krug Chef’s Tables in the world at the time: “the only Krug Chef’s Table in Asia; the others being in Brazil, Germany, Poland, Mexico City and the United States.” Six in all, and Enfin was the only one in Asia.

Format. A single party of up to twenty guests, with a menu written for each seating and paired with Krug Grande Cuvée. The room had bespoke Luzerne tableware (from a Singapore-owned fine-china maker), hand-cut mirrors, natural wood and warm tones. Time Out KL wrote that it was “obvious that there was no expense spared in the design of this private dining room.” The minimum spend was RM 25,000, or RM 1,250 a person for twenty guests, food and Krug Champagne included.

The Krug Room at Enfin, Menara Hap Seng, April 2016.

Options magazine’s An Affair to Remember described the build: an upper floor reached by a spiral staircase wrapped in gold, and a long table made from two woods, with a white-oak tongue down the centre. Oriental Daily covered the room in February 2016 (Krug 香槟名厨尊桌), and Men’s Uno gave it a full feature in Chinese in April 2016. The launch also coincided with the cover of The Star’s STAR2 Sunday Magazine on 10 April 2016, photographed by David Yeow: A Won-derful new Enfin.

Then the room moved. When Shin’Labo by James Won opened at Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport KL in February 2022, it became, in its own description, “home to Asia’s only Krug Chef’s Table.” The table came with me from Brasserie Enfin to Enfin (April 2016) and on to Shin’Labo (February 2022). The programme followed the work across three venues in continuous form.

The Krug Single Ingredient series

Every year the maison picks one ingredient and asks the Ambassade to cook a season around it with Krug. As a Krug Ambassade Chef I have taken on several of these briefs: rice and lemon at Shin’Labo, chilli in Oaxaca. Each one is its own conversation between the house and its chefs.

At the Krug × Rice edition, Shin'Labo: one chapter in the series.

For the 2024 brief the maison chose chilli, and I took the edition to Oaxaca in Mexico to work with the growers and the ground the ingredient comes from.

Krug × Chilli: Oaxaca, Mexico, and the farm where the ingredient grows.

The Single Ingredient is a discipline more than a campaign, and one of the closest matches I have found in the wider luxury drinks world to the discipline I try to keep in my own work.

Krug × Lemon: the Single Ingredient series at Shin’Labo (mid-2024)

For the 2024 Single Ingredient, the Krug Chef’s Table at Shin’Labo served a six-course pairing with Krug Grande Cuvée 170ème Édition and Krug Rosé 26ème Édition. The citrus stayed quiet at every turn: citron ponzu, citron salt syrup, fermented lemon dashi, soja citron caramel, miso lemon tuile, citron crème anglaise. Every course was built on the lemon.

A sample evening at Shin’Labo (2024). Krug Rosé 26ème Édition ran through the amuse and sashimi courses, then Krug Grande Cuvée 170ème Édition from the entrée on:

• Amuse-Bouche. Uni tofu with rose and watermelon (shira-ae); ikura with white balsamic pearls and kare rice; menchi-katsu with citron crème
• Sashimi & Sushi Moriawase. Aged kanpachi with citron ponzu; kombu and citron cured tai; sushi tuna temaki à la citron; lobster nigiri with citron salt syrup
• Le Entrée (signature). Caviar, miso lemon tuile, fermented lemon dashi, kiku chawanmushi · Krug Grande Cuvée 170ème Édition
• Le Plat Principal. Bidor duck with beetroot and soja citron caramel, alongside binchotan-roasted shiitake with gyokuro and rice
• Pre-Dessert. Monaka with citron crème anglaise and vanilla parfait glacé
• Le Dessert. Citron kuzu mochi with Japanese momo, grape gelée, sake granité, miso tuile

The signature was Le Entrée: caviar, miso lemon tuile, fermented lemon dashi and kiku chawanmushi, served with Krug Grande Cuvée 170ème Édition. You tasted the lemon in the tuile, in the dashi and in the citrus already in the cuvée.

The dedicated page has Bonnie Yap’s photographs, three pairing films and the twenty-four-hour Krug Instagram takeover. I am the only chef the maison has asked to do one.

Walk into Krug × Lemon →

The Krug Music Pairing: Olivier Krug’s tradition

Krug’s other ritual is the Krug Music Pairing, where each year musicians are invited to answer the Édition with music. In Tatler Asia, Olivier Krug, sixth-generation director of the house, described how the maison brings musicians into the experience, so that bottle, plate and music arrive in waves instead of one after another.

In its way, it is the most cross-disciplinary work in the whole luxury drinks field. It sits close to the culinary storytelling my own work is known for, and it gives the relationship with Krug a coherence that goes deeper than brand work.

Each year, the maison invites musicians into their bubbly experience.

Olivier Krug, sixth-generation director, Krug Champagne · Tatler Asia

The Italian recognition: Suonami e Versami un Krug

In 2024 the Italian gastronomy publication Geisha Gourmet wrote about the international Krug Ambassade roster and named me (Malesia) among its chefs. The piece ran as Suonami e Versami un Krug: Sound Me and Pour Me a Krug.

It is one of the most poetic ways of putting Krug in any language in my archive, and it found its way into Italian unprompted.

The Krug Hong Kong shoot, at the table and in the kitchen. Photographs by JZARINS.

The people at the maison

Krug looks after its own name and standing from Reims, and the Ambassade is the maison’s to give. In Malaysia the relationship has two sides: Krug Maison de Champagne itself, and Moët Hennessy Diageo Malaysia (MHD), the sales partner that distributes the house here.

Manuel Reman, President of Maison Krug, has looked after the Ambassade at maison level. The Robb Report’s feature on him explains the kind of gastronomy Krug looks for.

David Dang, Marketing Manager for Wines and Champagne at MHD, is my counterpart on the Krug side and has carried the Krug Chef’s Table programme alongside me. In Options magazine’s An Affair to Remember he said:

James shares the same values as the House of Krug. He sees clearly the bridge between culinary pleasures and Krug’s soul, and he puts forward this link in a simple but impactful manner. Both the chef and the restaurant space dedicated to Krug must strive for excellence in the art of food presentation.

David Dang, Marketing Manager, Wines and Champagne, MHD Malaysia

Julien Pepin Lehalleur, then Krug’s head of business development for the US and Asia, came to the opening-day dinner at Brasserie Enfin in 2013/2014. It was the maison’s first formal taste of my cooking, before the Ambassade was announced.

“On the opening day of Brasserie Enfin, I actually hosted a dinner for Julien Pepin Lehalleur, the head of business development for the US and Asia at Krug. He had been coming to Asia for years but never been to Malaysia. I was doing crazy things like durian crème brûlée with blue cheese macaroons. We served the Grand Cuvée that evening. Needless to say, he was blown away.” James Won, Options, c. 2016

My relationship is less with a brand than with the people who have carried it into Malaysia, decade after decade.

What continues after the restaurants

Enfin closed, and later Shin’Labo (2024), and the Ambassade work went on. Nicholas Ng’s piece for Food for Thought, The Zest is Yet to Come (9 September 2023), covers the recent work. The Robb Report’s James Won, Krug, Ryoutei Shin’Labo, Champagne follows it into 2024 and beyond.

The Ambassade never needed a restaurant to keep going. The friendship had always been bigger than any one room.

It’s very intimate and personalised.

James Won, Food for Thought, September 2023

On film

In 2023 Krug Maison de Champagne asked me to run its official Instagram channel for twenty-four hours, handing the house’s voice to its Ambassade Chef for a full day. So far I am the only chef the maison has asked.

The films from the partnership are gathered here in one strip: the takeover, the promotional film, and the footage from the Single Ingredient editions over the years. Scroll sideways to watch them.

All films commissioned by Moët Hennessy Diageo Malaysia on behalf of Maison Krug.

The archive

Every photograph and every film from twelve years with Krug, kept in one place for the record and for anyone looking for ideas. The Krug × Lemon page at /collaborations/krug/krug-x-lemon/ has its own photographs and pairing films.

Open the archive Twelve years in one place: 27 photographs, 3 films

Photographs

Films

Three more pairing films from the Krug × Lemon menu are on the Krug × Lemon page.