Nine Weeks, Then the Pivot

In late 2020, Bouchon Enfin opened at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur — the most casual room in the wider Enfin family, and the room I built around the food my grandmother would recognise. The format was a Lyonnaise bouchon: the family bistro tradition of Lyon's Croix-Rousse, where a meal is built from recipes passed down rather than menu architects' inventions. I carried that tradition into Kuala Lumpur and let it sit beside the dishes I had been raised on — the result was contemporary French with Modernist techniques at the front, Malaysian makan warmth at the table.

The plan was sound. The room was beautiful. The timing was unforgivable.

Nine weeks after Bouchon Enfin opened, the Movement Control Order shut its doors. What followed is the work that defines the restaurant on the public record: I turned, within a week, to the Be Kind programme — preparing and distributing dinner packets to organisations and communities in need across Kuala Lumpur, every week, for the duration of the closure.

The room is past tense. What endures is the example.

The Lyon tradition, the grandmother’s hand

The bouchon is a defining French institution that originated in Lyon’s Croix-Rousse district — a small, family-run bistro serving regional Lyonnaise specialities at neighbourhood prices, in a tradition that prizes warmth, plain-speaking, and food cooked from grandmother’s recipes rather than menu architects’.

That description fitted me twice over. My French training had given me the technique of the bouchon; my grandmother had given me the temperament. Bouchon Enfin was the first room where I let the two sit beside each other at the same table.

The Malaysian twist was not a marketing line. It was the actual menu. Pork-specialised dishes that any Malaysian who had grown up around a makan table would recognise — built on cuts and curing methods I had learned in France, finished with the seasonings my grandmother kept on her shelf. Sarawak heritage rice in place of arborio; Langit Collective peppercorn in place of the supermarket grind; family-style sharing format because that is how my grandmother had always served. Prestige Online Malaysia carried my framing of the concept; UFood / Oriental Daily walked Malaysian readers through the bouchon tradition itself, distinguishing it from brasserie and bistro.

The room was the most architecturally generous I had operated in. Contemporary French with Modernist techniques at the front of the room; bouchon warmth at the table.

We remain hopeful for 2021 — to be safe and well.

James Won · Prestige Online Malaysia · late 2020

The room — Swofinty Yik Design and Kenji Chai

The room was given physical form by Swofinty Yik Design — the award-winning Malaysian interior practice I had commissioned to translate the bouchon’s family warmth into a Pavilion-Level-3 dining space. Swofinty would, two years later, also hold the brief for Shin’Labo at Lalaport. The continuity is not incidental: the bouchon was the first room where I learned what the practice could do for me, and I returned to them when the next room asked for that same hand.

The mural in the front of house was the work of Kenji Chai — the Malaysian street and graffiti artist whose lions, hornbills, and feathered figures have appeared on walls across the country. I asked Kenji to bring his hand to Bouchon Enfin because the bouchon tradition itself is plain-spoken and folkloric — the room needed a contemporary Malaysian folk language to match it. The mural reads as a protector: lion, hornbill, and a masked figure in feathered headdress, threaded with the neon be signature that made the room legible from the Pavilion concourse.

Kenji also painted the feathered-wings installation that flanked the entrance — a still piece, hand-painted feather by feather onto the textured grooved wall. Guests stepped into the room beneath it.

Charcuterie — Mr Kuan and the in-house programme

Our signature work was the in-house charcuterie programme, held by Mr Kuan — my charcuterie expert who cured, smoked, and aged everything we served from the board. Smoked ham. Smoked bacon. Cured loins. Pâté en croûte. The bouchon tradition is a charcuterie tradition before it is anything else, and in Kuala Lumpur that meant building the programme from scratch — there was no standing house I could buy from at the calibre I wanted, so I made the house.

Mr Kuan’s smoked ham and smoked bacon ran through the menu beyond the board itself. The carbonara carried his bacon. The fried rice carried his ham. The donabe rice pots — built on dark Sarawak heritage rice — were finished with sliced smoked pork belly that had been three weeks in his cure. Operations were, in truth, organised around the time his programme demanded; we built the menu in service of the curing calendar, not the other way round.

The pork chop sat at the centre of the room: cut on the bone, dry-rubbed and aged in Mr Kuan’s cabinet, finished over fire. Tabbouleh-chimichurri at the side, crisp pork-rind fingers, a fruit chutney to cut the richness. A Lyonnaise plate with my grandmother’s hand on the seasoning.

The glazed pork belly was the cuisine at its most plain Malaysian: a clean square cut, lacquered in a dark soy-and-honey glaze that read as char siu to one half of the room and as laquage to the other. Sesame green beans for the palate. Shoestring fries because every bouchon serves something with frites.

The parfait sat on every starter board: chicken liver smoothed to silk, sealed under a glass of port-wine jelly that broke into the toast like an elegy.

Sourcing — Langit Collective and the East Malaysia heirlooms

Bouchon Enfin’s sourcing was anchored to Langit Collective — the Malaysian social enterprise that works with smallholder farmers in East Malaysia to bring heirloom agricultural products to market at fair return. We sourced through them deliberately. The rice was theirs; the peppercorn was theirs; the golden coral snails — the rare highland snail variety farmed by Sarawak smallholders — came through their channel and onto a Lyonnaise plate that would otherwise have asked for Burgundian escargot.

That choice — Sarawak heritage rice over arborio, Langit peppercorn over generic, golden coral snails over Burgundian escargot — was not local-sourcing as a marketing position. It was the menu telling the truth about where I was and whom I cooked for. A Lyonnaise bouchon in Kuala Lumpur, sourced from East Malaysia, by a chef whose grandmother had taught him to read a market.

Lyonnaise risotto, built in the slow style on Langit’s heritage rice — the long-grain dark variety carries an earthier finish than arborio, and the green of fresh parsley took to the grain like ink to fibre. Crisp pork-rind puffs on top for texture. The dish argued, plate-side, that Sarawak rice belongs in a French repertoire as readily as it belongs in a Sarawakian one.

The plates

Every bouchon opens the same way. Bread on the board, cultured butter beside, no ceremony. We baked the loaves in-house and toasted them to order so the crust carried that small bitter from the grill. The butter was salted, room-temperature, generous. A guest who refused the bread had not yet sat down.

The cellar braise we cooked through the cooler month — chicken in red wine, button mushroom, carrot, garlic toast on the side — was the bouchon at its most direct. No technique on top, no architecture in the bowl: a long braise and a slice of toast and the chicken having absorbed its own colour.

Steak frites is the bouchon classic that no kitchen escapes. We cooked it the proper way — rested, sliced, finished on the cast iron with rosemary; béarnaise in a small dish, frites alongside. The plate arrives without explanation. That is the point.

Whole roast chicken is the other table-centre dish, served whole for the table to share. The Malaysian twist sat in the small bowl beside — a chilli condiment my grandmother would have recognised, in place of the gravy a Lyonnaise table might have asked for. Bok choy for the green. Sharing format, again, because that is how the menu was built.

The pork burger was the casual end of the menu: Mr Kuan’s bacon, melted cheese, brioche, fries cone. A bouchon serves that with the same care it serves the coq au vin; the same cook, the same hand, the same standard.

The menu was built for the Malaysian makan culture of food sharing — every plate held the family format. Yum cha sessions. Birthday rounds. The end of a long week in town. The bouchon’s gift is that it does not separate the casual from the considered; the same kitchen serves both at the same standard.

The drinks programme

The drinks programme matched the table. A wide gin selection cut with London Essence Tonic; classic and signature cocktails from the bar; a working wine list across French, Old World, and a small Malaysian section; and a champagne pour for the table that wanted one. The format was generous on purpose — a bouchon is where a guest decides at the table what kind of evening they want, and the drinks list had to meet that decision halfway.

Featured launch film

Nine weeks (late 2020 – January 2021)

Bouchon Enfin operated for nine weeks before the second Movement Control Order shut its doors in January 2021. Sin Chew Daily (12 April 2021) carried my account of the closure and the pivot decision: when I realised the room could not operate, the priority became feeding the city.

I had a choice. The choice I made is the room.

The Be Kind pivot — and the #SupporkLokal sandwich cart

Within one week of closure, I pivoted the Bouchon Enfin kitchen to the Be Kind programme — preparing and distributing dinner packets to organisations and communities in need. The chapter is recorded across Yahoo Malaysia / News (Malaysian James Won fine dining chef launches Be Kind initiative), Robb Report Malaysia (Enfin × James Won — New Luxury Comfort Food Delivery Service), Sunshine Kelly (January 2021), Vulcan Post, and Sin Chew Daily.

Two programmes ran in parallel. The Be Kind programme — feeding organisations and communities — operated as humanitarian work. The Robb Report Luxury Comfort Food Delivery Service — bringing Bouchon Enfin’s degustation discipline into private homes — operated as hospitality. Both used the same kitchen. Both kept my team employed. Both honoured the same principle: I do not stop because the room is closed.

Bouchon Enfin sat inside the wider BeKind Group structure, which committed ten per cent of group proceeds to partner charities and foundations across the operating period. The discipline was group-wide, not gestural.

The closest the work came to the public eye was the #SupporkLokal sandwich cart, set up every morning outside the Pavilion Level 3 entrance during the MCO — complimentary breakfast sandwiches for anyone who needed one, distributed without question or paperwork. CincaiNews and Eh! / viralcham both carried the story under the banner Malaysian James Won’s restaurant gives free breakfast sandwiches to those in need.

We’re living amid such conditions [that] […] dinner packets to these organisations.

James Won · Yahoo Malaysia, January 2021

What endured

Bouchon Enfin closed in 2021. The Lyonnaise bouchon tradition passed into historical record; the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur room was returned. What endured was Be Kind — a discipline of service that I have carried into every room since.

The next room I opened was Shin’Labo by James Won at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL in 2022 — the yōshoku salon that Robb Report Malaysia would later term Ryoutei Shin’Labo. Swofinty held the design brief there too. Mr Kuan’s charcuterie discipline carried forward into MeatMore in 2023, and into the dedicated Mortlach Room within it. The Be Kind precedent set at Bouchon Enfin travelled with me into Shin’Labo, and beyond — into MeatMore, into the cultural-diplomacy turn of 2025, into the Serumpun Sarawak movement that now holds my work on the formal cultural record.

The room could not be saved. The principle could. The principle is what travels.

The Archive — alternative frames

A small gallery for the secondary frames that did not earn a place in the main narrative — kept here for the food-porn record, and for any guest who wants to look longer at the room before leaving the page.