Quality is the most exotic thing
Twenty-two minutes on BFM 89.9 about Enfin, its farm and the people behind every plate.
On Valentine's Day 2018 I joined Christine Wong on BFM 89.9's Enterprise to talk about Enfin, two years after we moved from a small brasserie in Damansara to Menara Hap Seng. Her question was what made Enfin different, and what a restaurant needs to succeed. These are the points I made on air.
Enfin began as a small brasserie in Damansara. From the start I wanted to pursue the best the country could offer, in ingredients, in skills and in service, and to cook farm to table. By 2018 we had a rooftop garden, and our produce came from an organic, biodynamic farm in Cameron Highlands.
I called it contemporary French: French technique with very local ingredients. That did not mean a confused nasi lemak. It meant showing what good chicken, and good vegetables grown close to home, should taste like. That mattered more to me than any fancy technique.
You could not find a sign outside. Our guests valued discretion; they were not there to be seen. Inside, there was no such thing as a small detail: how we made our bread and butter, the salt, the linen, the chairs, the tables.
A chef I trained under taught me that if your bread and butter are not right, the rest of the meal does not matter. So we used no commercial yeast. Everything was naturally fermented, from a library of our own cultures, kept healthy with fermented fruit enzymes, and we made our own koji. The bar used the same library. The mixologist would ask how you felt that evening, salty, sexy, sweet, sour or strong, and make your drink from the answer.
My kitchen was entirely Malaysian. Many of my cooks had never been to Europe, and they were cooking food that was recognised internationally. When your reference point is that far away, it is easy to doubt yourself, so we kept the cooking honest and international, and away from trends. Our diet is lighter now. We are not a dairy country, yet we love fat, so the cooking had to be light and still satisfying.
We changed the menu every month, because I could not dictate it. Every week the farm would tell us what had not come up: no carrots, no tomatoes. Real farm to table means you do not buy from next door to fill the gap. You get creative.
The farm used no nitrogen to force growth. Commercial vegetables grow big and fast and taste of nothing; most people now eat fibre, not what a carrot should taste like. With great produce, ninety per cent of the work is done.
My belief system sits uneasily with taking a life, so I try to be responsible about it. If we take an animal’s life, we celebrate it properly, and make sure it was killed without stress. Stressed animals do not taste good, just as an unhappy chef cooks an unhappy meal. I wanted every fish killed properly and everything on the menu from a sustainable source. Vegetables flown halfway round the world carry a heavy footprint and arrive tired; ours reached the kitchen three hours after harvest.
So I tell my team one thing above all: never take your suppliers or your producers for granted. Six years back in Malaysia had taught me that, and taught them that a chef who is not driven by price does exist.
Enfin would not have been what it was without the beverage makers. They took us international, and representing their houses gave me a platform to speak about the opportunities in Malaysia. That is why I was so excited to see new restaurants and new Malaysian cuisine coming through. Right or wrong does not matter in craft. The only wrong is when it is stale and has no voice. Not everyone likes Andy Warhol, but you react to it. Cuisine is the same.
Quality is the most exotic thing you can ever eat.
James Won, on BFM 89.9
Never take your suppliers for granted. Without them, every plate is harder.