New Laboratory

Shin'Labo — new laboratory — opened in 2022 at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL. The name pairs Shin (true, new, heart) with Labo (laboratory — the word reads in both French and Japanese). The cuisine took yōshoku heritage as its foundation and carried it further — through French haute technique, luxury ingredients, and Malaysian terroir. Where traditional yōshoku reframed Western fare through a Japanese lens for the everyday table, Shin'Labo reframed yōshoku itself at fine-dining standard. The operating philosophy was Beneficial and Sustainable Gastronomy — the chef-steward, not merely an interpreter of the menu. The room held the conversation at three levels at once — restaurant, salon, and ambassadorial private dining.

The restaurant operated for nearly three years, closing in December 2024, and is now part of the historical record of my fourteen-year arc. Tatler Asia, Robb Report Malaysia, FirstClasse, BURO 24/7, Lifestyle Asia, and The Peak all carried the room; The Vibes recorded the HAPA Awards hat-trick; Pin Prestige carried the Balvenie pairing dinners in Chinese; Robb Report’s later coverage framed the Krug Ambassade work staged in the room as Ryoutei Shin’Labo — placing it in the high-end Japanese private-dining tradition.

What follows is the work as the press preserved it.

Identity, Cuisine, and Launch (2022)

The early coverage established Shin’Labo’s defining frame. Tatler Asia’s launch piece by Aaron Pereira (2022) carried the opening; FirstClasse named the discipline as “a culinary expression in both French and Japanese”; Lifestyle Asia KL recorded the cuisine as “marrying Japanese cuisine with French cooking, elevated through local ingredients”; Robb Report Malaysia held the maison-grade standard from the first review, framing the work as yōshoku taken further with French technique and Malaysian ingredients.

A culinary expression in both French and Japanese.

FirstClasse · 2022

The cuisine was not pure yōshoku. Traditional yōshoku — tonkatsu, omurice, hambāgu, korokke, Japanese curry — is the genre Japan built in the late nineteenth century by reframing Western fare through a Japanese lens for the everyday table. Shin’Labo took that heritage as its starting point and carried it further: the same Japanese-Western dialogue, but executed with French haute technique, Caspian caviar, dry-aged duck, seasonal truffle, and Krug Champagne pairings. The room reframed yōshoku at fine-dining standard.

The location at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL was not incidental. Travel & Leisure Asia’s coverage of the wider Mitsui retail concept — local produce, Malaysian indigenous ingredients, Japanese retail philosophy — placed Shin’Labo inside a Japanese-Malaysian conversation that the cuisine itself was already holding on the plate. The setting was the cuisine’s parallel architecture.

The Three Rooms — Shin’Kappou, Ryoutei, Maison du Caviar

The 2,700-square-foot footprint at Lalaport BBCC was divided into three distinct dining zones, each at a different level of intimacy.

Shin’Kappou — the main dining room. Guests watched me prepare multi-course menus using traditional kappou techniques — cutting, boiling, stewing, frying — at the counter. The format was deliberately Japanese: the cooking was the room.

Krug Chef’s Table — Ryoutei Shin’Labo — one of the few in the world, and the only one in Asia. The room hosted exclusive Krug Champagne pairings and the continuing Ambassade work. Robb Report Malaysia’s coverage placed it in the high-end Japanese ryoutei (料亭) tradition of private dining.

Maison du Caviar Caspienne — the dedicated caviar bar and lounge. Top-tier sturgeon caviar sourced directly from heritage sites in the Caspian Sea sat at the centre of the experience.

The Award-Winning Design — Swofinty, MUSE Gold, MIID Silver

The room was given physical form by Swofinty — the local design firm I commissioned to translate the discipline into a working dining space. Swofinty held the brief: bold minimal facade, laboratory-inspired interior — sculptural lighting, lab cabinets, the architectural language of restraint that the cuisine was already practising on the plate. The result placed Shin’Labo on the international design record.

In 2022, the room was named:

• MUSE Design Awards — Gold (2022) — interior design. The international award honoured Swofinty’s translation of a transcendental dining concept into a physical room.
• MIID REKA Awards — Silver (2022) — Food & Beverage category. The Malaysian Institute of Interior Designers’ premier accolade. Swofinty was recognised for translating my transcendental dining brief into space.

Two design awards in the opening year, and a HAPA hat-trick to follow across 2023 – 2024. The work that followed in the room rested on the discipline the architecture had already established.

Signature Dishes

Three dishes anchored Shin’Labo across its operating years, each carrying a different facet of the discipline.

Bread of the Forest — an artistic appetiser composed to read as the forest floor. Reflective of the experimental form Shin’Labo held to.

Binchotan Duck à l’Orange — duck dry-aged in-house, seared over Binchotan charcoal. The contemporary French with Modernist techniques preparation reframed in the Japanese kitchen idiom.

Truffle Hayashi Rice — the signature comfort dish. Duck, onsen egg, and seasonal truffles, plated to honour the Japanese home-cooking tradition while carrying it to fine-dining standard.

The oyster sat at the centre of Shin’Labo — the dish that, more than any other, held what Shin’Labo was: the meeting of the Japanese ingredient, the French technique, and the Malaysian terroir at a single point on the plate. Across the operating years, it returned again and again, the room’s unspoken signature.

Reviews and Critical Reception

The dining press’s treatment of Shin’Labo coalesced around three threads: ingredient quality, the Japanese-French framing, and the room’s atmosphere. BURO 24/7’s review of dinner, drinks and caviar at Shin’Labo by James Won described the room with one of the cleanest framings of the entire kitchen years.

Tatler Asia’s second feature held the same standard: “the ingredients are undoubtedly premium […] a tantalising range of sake.” The Peak ran an On the Cover feature, and later carried the launch of the Kikuyu Elevated Yōshoku Lunch Set (2022). Across the four pieces, what emerges is a kitchen that did not over-explain itself — and a press that recognised the discipline at first read.

Recognition — The HAPA Awards Hat-trick

In 2022, The Vibes recorded the work that placed Shin’Labo on the formal record of Malaysian hospitality excellence: a hat-trick win at the HAPA Awards. The piece carried my own framing — “a restaurant is only as good as its team” — which, surfaced once and not repeated, captures the operating posture that earned the recognition.

A restaurant is only as good as its team.

James Won · The Vibes (HAPA Awards hat-trick)

The hat-trick is held with restraint on this page. The recognition is in service of the work, not the person.

The Team — A Restaurant Is Only as Good as Its People

The hat-trick recognition was earned by a team. Shin’Labo’s working brigade ran across kappou counter, French haute kitchen, caviar bar, and Krug Chef’s Table — each room with its own discipline, each room held by people I trusted to honour the standard the room asked for.

The Cameron Walk — Before First Service

Before service began, the brigade walked the soil. Every member of the opening team — cook, server, sommelier — was required to visit Uncle Leong’s bio-dynamic farm in Cameron Highlands before taking their place in the room at Lalaport. Bio-dynamic farming holds the produce inside a closed loop — the soil restored season after season, the planting paced to the calendar of the land. To know the cuisine, the team had to know the ground. The visit was a formation rite, not a tour — the chef-steward, the phrase we held, asked the room to remember where the produce came from. A place is best remembered by having stood in it.

The Aging Library — Protein Discipline Since Inception

From the day Shin’Labo opened in 2022, the art and science of protein ageing sat at the centre of the work. The aging library was not an accessory to the work; it was the work, in slow form. Across the three operating years, the discipline ran as a continuous programme — protein aged at temperature, against time, against the season’s offering — held to a yōshoku standard.

The discipline travelled. When I opened MeatMore in October 2023 and built the dedicated Mortlach Room within it, the ageing programme was not invented for that room — it was the Shin’Labo discipline, by then a year and a half into its development, translated meat-specific. Whiskey, butter, kombu — three programmes within one cabinet at MeatMore, all carried from the same foundation Shin’Labo had been laying since opening day.

The Krug Room — The Resident Champagne Expression

Within Shin’Labo, the Krug Chef’s Table functioned as the resident champagne expression — the salon-format engagement where my continuing Krug Ambassade work was staged. Robb Report Malaysia’s later coverage framed the room as Ryoutei Shin’Labo — invoking the Japanese ryoutei (料亭) tradition of high-end private dining.

The Krug Chef’s Table relocated from Enfin (Menara Hap Seng) to Shin’Labo in February 2022 — making Shin’Labo, per the maison’s brand standard, home to Asia’s only Krug Chef’s Table. Krug Grande Cuvée and Krug Rosé 26ème Édition were poured for the Ambassade work, the Pininfarina × Mepra × Chef James Won special edition was used exclusively, and the Krug Music Pairing tradition continued the conversation that had started at Enfin’s Krug Chef’s Table in April 2016.

Brand Pairings and Programmes

Shin’Labo was the venue at which much of my brand work landed across its operating years.

The Macallan — the formal Dining Experience programme commenced 15 February 2022 and ran for twenty-four months through 14 February 2024. Three programme registers (Whisky Dining Experience, Cocktail Activation, Premium Spirit Activation across all three rooms). Limited Edition flagship: The Harmony Collection Rich Cacao, with Jordi Roca and Polly Logan; 94-bottle allocation to Shin’Labo. The 007 James Bond 60th Anniversary launch, where Shin’Labo was named among six authorised KL establishments.

Mortlach — the launch (September 2022), before the dedicated Mortlach Room moved to MeatMore (29 August 2023 — 2024).

The Balvenie — the PinPalate pairing dinners covered by Pin Prestige in Chinese, featuring Caribbean Cask, Port Wood, and aged-statement releases (April – May 2022).

Glenfiddich — the Grand Yozakura 29-Year-Old activation, where the maison’s Japan-finished Speyside expression met Shin’Labo’s Japanese-French discipline.

Louis XIII — the 2022 activation that placed T’lur Malaysian caviar at the centre of a global Louis XIII pairing for the first time. The campaign — Les Voyages du Caviar — ran across April – June 2022.

BMW — the electrified menu designed for the BMW i7 launch.

Mepra — used exclusively at Shin’Labo throughout the operating period (no other restaurant in Malaysia served on the maison’s flatware).

Locational and Concept Context

Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL is a Mitsui-managed retail concept in Bukit Bintang City Centre. Travel & Leisure Asia’s coverage explained the host environment — local produce, Malaysian indigenous ingredients, Japanese retail philosophy, Japanese-Malaysian retail architecture. Shin’Labo’s siting inside that architecture was not incidental. The mall was a Japanese-Malaysian retail concept hosting a Japanese-French-Malaysian kitchen; the alignment was the operating principle.

Travelling Shin’Labo

I left the room on occasion. The clearest documented night is the Anantara Desaru popup of 1 December 2022 — a one-night residency at Sea. Fire. Salt Restaurant inside Anantara Desaru Coast Resort & Villas, on the east coast of Johor. I plated a sensorial six-course Japanese-French menu for one evening only — same discipline, same restraint, in a room I did not own that night, by the sea.

That is the first travelling Shin’Labo evening I would put on this page. Where there have been others, they sit at the same standard: my work, carried elsewhere, on the same terms.

Featured Films — The Showreel and Selected Shorts

A short visual record of the room — a showreel and selected YouTube Shorts that documented the work as it lived.

The wider Shorts archive — twelve more short films grouped by what each captured.

Krug × Lemon — the Single Ingredient series:

• Celebrating the Krug Single Ingredient — Buro
• Celebrating the Krug Single Ingredient — FirstClasse
• Celebrating the Krug Single Ingredient — Grazia
• Celebrating the Krug Single Ingredient — L’officiel

Shin’Labo experiences — maison pairings:

• Shin’Labo × Krug — the experience
• Shin’Labo × Mortlach — the experience
• Shin’Labo × Macallan — the experience
• Shin’Labo × Louis XIII — the experience
• Shin’Labo at Anantara Desaru — the travelling room

Cuisine philosophy:

• Shin’Labo by James Won — cuisine philosophy
• Shin’Labo by James Won — cuisine philosophy

Mother’s Menu:

• Shin’Labo by James Won — Mother’s Menu celebrations

The 2024 Closure and the Pivot

Shin’Labo closed in December 2024 as part of my deliberate pivot from operating restaurants to conservation and culinary diplomacy work — a pivot that crystallised the following year, when the Serumpun Sarawak movement reached its first international showcase at Seaside Studio CASO, Osaka.

The closure was not an ending; it was a turning. The discipline did not leave me. It found a larger room — first the Mulu rainforest, then the wider state of Sarawak, and ultimately the Sarawak Cultural Village succession of April 2026.