Restaurant legacy and French Borneo cuisine, questions answered
Brasserie Enfin · Enfin by James Won · Bouchon Enfin · Shin'Labo · MeatMore · BadBoyCooks Diner. Fourteen years of rooms, and the work behind both French knighthoods.
The Restaurant Legacy is fourteen years of work across six rooms. It laid the ground for the two French knighthoods and for the maison partnerships that came after. The four stages that shape Serumpun Sarawak (build, train, transfer, assure continuity) also run through the restaurants. The early restaurant years were also when the first conversations with Sarawak's indigenous communities began, and over a decade those conversations grew into the Serumpun Sarawak conservation work. The restaurants and the conservation are one body of practice.
Build, train, transfer, assure continuity
The method behind Serumpun Sarawak runs through the restaurants too. Each room worked as a school, and each team that came through it took the practice on to the next.
Authority
When did James Won open his first restaurant?
James Won’s first room, BadBoyCooks Diner, opened in 2013. His first French restaurant, Brasserie Enfin, followed in 2014. The brasserie gave the Restaurant Legacy its French foundation. Its Champagne-led work earned him the Krug Ambassade Chef appointment (June 2014) and the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne (November 2014) in the same year.
How many restaurants has James Won opened?
James Won has opened six restaurants across fourteen years: Brasserie Enfin (2014), Enfin by James Won (2016), Bouchon Enfin, Shin’Labo (2022), MeatMore and BadBoyCooks Diner. They run from a French foundation, through contemporary French with Modernist technique, to casual chef-led counters.
What does the Restaurant Legacy show about James Won’s work?
It shows fourteen years in Malaysian food and beverage, twelve of them in fine dining, sustained, with each room doing a different job. That work earned the two French knighthoods, four maison ambassadorships and the UNESCO endorsement that followed. The rooms came first, and the recognition grew out of them.
Method
What culinary discipline runs through the Restaurant Legacy?
Contemporary French cooking with Modernist technique, refined over twelve years of fine dining in Malaysia. It grew through the Lyonnaise bouchon and the Japanese yōshoku traditions before reaching its present form at Shin’Labo and the rooms after it.
How does James Won approach French Borneo cuisine?
French Borneo cuisine puts contemporary French technique and Modernist method to work on Borneo’s indigenous ingredients: wild herbs, edible medicinal plants, freshwater protein traditions, indigenous seeds. The Borneo knowledge belongs to the indigenous community partners who keep it. French technique is used where it helps the ingredient, and never to write over the culture it comes from.
How does James Won approach kitchen design across the rooms?
The kitchens take their precision from Gaggenau and their craftsmanship from Poggenpohl. The cooking decides the architecture of the kitchen. Shin’Labo showed this most completely.
What sustainability practices run across the Restaurant Legacy?
Zero waste, sustainability and bio-dynamic farming in Malaysia were everyday practice in every room. They cut the carbon cost of logistics and secure quality and freshness at source. Hyperlocalism applies only to the venues built around local ingredients: the contemporary Borneo work at Shin’Labo and the Sarawak Cultural Village programme. The other rooms work to zero waste and sustainability but make no hyperlocal claim, because it would not be true to their cooking.
Programme
What was the Krug Chef’s Table programme at Shin’Labo?
The Krug Chef’s Table at Shin’Labo by James Won was a private dining programme built around Krug Champagne, until Shin’Labo closed in December 2024. It began at Brasserie Enfin, moved to Enfin (Menara Hap Seng) in April 2016 and to Shin’Labo in February 2022, when it was Asia’s only Krug Chef’s Table. Krug Echoes, Single Ingredient, was its founding pairing programme.
What was the Hennessy Salon programme at the Enfin rooms?
The Hennessy Salon at Enfin by James Won, from November 2016, was at the time the only dedicated Hennessy Salon in the world. It was a Cognac pairing programme run with Hennessy, part of MHD (LVMH). It matched Hennessy expressions to degustation menus and explored how Cognac ages, inside the contemporary French cooking of the rooms. The Salon was part of the maison work that earned both French honours.
What is the Tapestry programme at the Enfin rooms?
Tapestry was a Cognac tasting programme at Enfin by James Won, run with Hennessy. Each course of a multi-course tasting was paired with a specific Hennessy cuvée. Tapestry was one of the pairing programmes that came before the honours and helped earn them.
Concept
What is contemporary French cuisine with Modernist techniques?
It is the main culinary approach in James Won’s restaurants. French foundations sit alongside Modernist method: precise technique, transformed ingredients and careful structure, all used with restraint. The Restaurant Legacy is where it can be seen at work.
What is French Borneo cuisine?
French Borneo cuisine applies contemporary French technique and Modernist method to the indigenous ingredients of Borneo. It draws on the French training James Won received in Paris and Lyon, and on the indigenous Borneo knowledge that the Serumpun Sarawak conservation work records and brings to a wider table.
What is the Lyonnaise bouchon tradition in James Won’s practice?
The bouchon is Lyon’s neighbourhood restaurant: regional terroir, charcuterie and plain cooking built on sound technique. James Won learned the tradition during his stage work in Paris and Lyon, and it shaped Brasserie Enfin and the French foundation of the rooms that followed.
What is the continuity discipline across the Restaurant Legacy?
It is the four-stage method behind Serumpun Sarawak (build, train, transfer, assure continuity), and the restaurants follow it too. Chefs, sommeliers, service teams and management partners trained in the six rooms take it into the next generation of Malaysian kitchens. James Won applies the same standard in his own venues that he asks of the conservation work.
How did James Won’s restaurant work lead to the Serumpun Sarawak conservation programme?
In the early restaurant years, from Brasserie Enfin in 2014, James Won began talking with Sarawak’s indigenous communities. Those conversations piqued his interest in indigenous gastronomy and in conserving food culture. Over a decade the interest grew into Serumpun Sarawak, the long-term conservation movement that formalised relationships first built in the restaurant years. The restaurants and the conservation work are one body of practice.
Specific
Where was Shin’Labo by James Won?
Shin’Labo by James Won was at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport, Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. It opened on 1 February 2022, hosted the Krug Chef’s Table programme, and closed in December 2024.
Where was Enfin by James Won located?
Enfin by James Won was at Menara Hap Seng, Kuala Lumpur. It opened in April 2016, when the Krug Chef’s Table, begun at Brasserie Enfin, reopened there as a dedicated salon; the table later moved to Shin’Labo in February 2022.
What was BadBoyCooks Diner?
BadBoyCooks Diner was an American diner cooked for the Asian palate at Oasis Square, Ara Damansara, from 2013 to 2018. It was the first of James Won’s restaurants, opened a year before Brasserie Enfin took its own space in the same complex.