The cuisine moved

At Seaside Studio CASO

In August 2025, Serumpun Sarawak debuted internationally at Seaside Studio CASO in Osaka, in conjunction with Sarawak Week at World Expo Osaka. The four-day showcase ran from 5 to 8 August 2025 — the platform’s first sustained presentation outside Malaysian soil, and its first stage where the work was read against an audience drawn from across Asia and beyond.

The Expo programme referenced the cuisine as Borneo French Cuisine. The work itself read as French Borneo — a synthesis of contemporary French rigour, brought to life through Modernist techniques, with the indigenous knowledge of Borneo’s communities, held in conversation rather than compromise. Both names point to the same plate.

Of one root, one family — one land read as five terrains

The menu’s spine is Serumpun itself: of the same root, of one cluster. One land read as five terrains, each terrain carried by the Sarawak people who knows its ground.

Course I, River, was given to the Penan. Course II, Forest, to the Iban. Course III, Mountain, to the Bidayuh. Course IV, Coast, to the Melanau. Course V, Sea, to the Kayan. And the close, Harmony, tied Bornean and Japanese threads together as a single farewell.

A note on attribution, written here because it matters more than the menu itself. The pairing of each course with a Sarawak people is a custodial tribute, not a habitat claim. Each people is invited to carry a landscape as homage — and the carrying is an act of honour, decoupled from where a people lives, farms, or hunts. The Kayan, an upriver people, carrying the Sea is the clearest measure of the device: the mapping is paid as tribute, not assigned as terrain. Habitat custodianship and the stewardship of particular ingredients are distinct, held with community specificity, and honoured in their own right wherever a course draws on them.

May the forest walk beside you, and the river remember your name.

The menu — six courses and an opening

Each course was anchored to one of Sarawak’s ecological settings, given to its people in custodial tribute, and read through the platform’s discipline.

Amuse-Bouche — Of Sea, Forest, and Friendship

Dabai and avocado feather, dusted with Bario Merah, the opening flight begins. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Job’s Tear and tekuyung pasang river snail, the cattail of riverbank memory. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Tiger prawn pearl with yuzu, Sarawak white peppercorn, and silken tofu. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

A trio of bite-sized creations. Dabai and avocado feather tuile dusted with Bario Merah red rice; Job’s Tear and tekuyung pasang river-snail cattail; tiger prawn pearl with yuzu, Sarawak white peppercorn, and silken tofu. The opening gesture between Sarawak and Japan.

Course I · River — given to the Penan

Empurau confit in Enkabang oil, in collagen broth drawn from its own bones. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Empurau, Enkabang nut, and Liberica blossoms. The Emperor of River Fish confit in Enkabang nut oil, finished with a crust of sago and hill rice, in a collagen broth drawn from the fish’s own bones and scales. Snail glace, ulam oil, Sarawak black peppercorn.

Course II · Forest — given to the Iban

Bichotan-roasted chicken glazed with Gula Apong, Bario cinnamon, and Ipah Kayuh. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Bichotan-roasted free-range chicken, glazed with Gula Apong, Bario cinnamon, and Ipah Kayuh — the wild leaf indigenous communities use to amplify umami. Slow-cooked cassava leaf and tempoyak crème, the soft pungency of fermented durian held to a level the room could read.

Course III · Mountain — given to the Bidayuh

Aged venison in Litsea cubeba crust, on three-coloured Bario rice risotto. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Aged venison crusted in Litsea cubeba and Bario salt, resting on a terroir of three-coloured Bario rice risotto infused with Manok Pansuh broth. Tepus (wild ginger), upa pantu (heart of palm), pickled wild eggplant, bracken and midin fern tips. A Liberica coffee and tuak glaze. The Kelabit highlands held against an Italian technique.

Course IV · Coast — given to the Melanau

Swordfish umai cured in green mango and lime; weaver-ant coconut soufflé alongside. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Swordfish umai ceviche cured in green mango, lime, shallots, and chilli pickles, set against a kesum (weaver-ant) coconut soufflé and a black squid-ink tebaloi cracker. The ulat sagu — sago worm — offered as an optional element, not as a dare but as a dialogue.

Course V · Sea — given to the Kayan

Sarawak tiger prawn wrapped in daun bungkang, hearth-roasted, in Buah Kulim bisque. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Sarawak deep-sea tiger prawn marinated in ginger torch and wrapped in daun bungkang leaf, hearth-roasted. Smoked yam gnocchi, prawn-tomalley and Buah Kulim bisque. The longhouse hearth held in the technique of a French velouté.

Course VI · Harmony — the close

Black rice kuih, matcha warabi mochi, coconut sorbet, soy-caramel sablé, pandan cream. Photograph by Bonnie Yap.

Black rice kuih tai tai, pounded and pressed overnight in the Peranakan tradition. Matcha warabi mochi made from bracken-flour. Coconut sorbet, soy-caramel sablé, pandan cream. A close that bid Osaka farewell and welcomed Mulu in the same gesture.

The supporting palette — Sarawak hero against working register

Every course anchored on one or two Sarawak identity-bearers and drew support from the Osaka-sourced pantry and the technique register where the dish required it. The discipline was not hyperlocalism. It was the right ingredient for the dish from the closest credible origin the law and the season allowed.

The buah kulim in the Sea bisque is the clearest statement of the house’s pairing logic — a Borneo nut delivering the earthy, garlic-truffle register a European kitchen would reach to Périgord for. Used because it earns its place, not as a substitute for the sake of locality.

How it was carried — two sites, one pass

The occasion set the frame before a single dish did. This was a world-stage showcase, not a restaurant service: Sarawak’s presence at Osaka, forty covers an evening across four evenings, and a single hard operational fact that shaped everything — no access to the pavilion before the event day itself.

The model was therefore two sites, one pass. A rented commercial kitchen in Osaka served as the commissary in the days before the run, holding everything that could be made and held: the broths, the confit oil, the gula apong glaze, the bisque base, the pastry, the tebaloi cracker, the pickled terung asam, the kuih pressed overnight under weight. The pavilion was the pass — only final cooking, assembly, and plating crossed to Seaside Studio CASO. Cold chain held from the commissary to the pavilion in insulated boxes; on the day a refrigerated vehicle kept food safe in transit.

The travelling team was thirty: twenty production and emcee, ten front-of-house and support. The kitchen unit at the pass was a twelve-hand brigade — two on fish and broth, two on meat and risotto, two on cold and foam, two on grill and bisque, one on pastry, one as garnish lead carrying flowers and final micro-herbs across every plate, one as expediter calling the pass, one as tableside lead for the poured courses. The pairing across stations meant no single position carried a course alone; the expediter and tableside lead were dedicated roles.

The plating doctrine ran through every plate, every night: organic, not forced; intentional, not decorative; rooted, not theatrical. Base, protein, sauce, texture, flowers, wipe, pass — run clean, every plate identical.

What shipped, what was sourced

The pantry ran on two registers. Sarawak’s indigenous identity-bearers — empurau, enkabang oil, Liberica blossom, tempoyak, Ipah Kayuh, gula apong, Bario salt and cinnamon, Litsea cubeba, tekuyung pasang, kesak, ulat tinduh, buah kulim, midin, daun bungkang, dabai — were shipped from Sarawak under cold chain and customs documentation, frozen or vacuum-sealed, with health certification and an ATA Carnet for equipment, in compliance with Japan’s restrictions on fresh meat and plant imports. The villagers of Betong assisted in collecting tekuyung, midin, Job’s Tear, and sago grub; the work turned also to Sarawak’s local markets, the Tamu Saratok among them, where ingredients passed through the hands that had held them since they came in from the rivers and the forests.

Perishable produce, dairy, common proteins, and pantry staples — free-range chicken thigh, venison loin, sashimi-grade swordfish, tiger prawn, silken tofu, avocado, yuzu, green mango, purple yam, coconut, dairy, eggs, warabiko, matcha, the edible flowers and micro-herbs from the Bentencho florist routes — were procured in Osaka.

The discipline was not hyperlocalism. It was the right ingredient for the dish from the closest credible origin the law and the season allowed.

What the tsunami tested — the empurau contingency

The empurau is the hero of the River course. It is also where contingency was tested in fact.

A tsunami alert fell across the service window. Planes were grounded; the team was locked down in the boarding houses for safety; with the pavilion already barred from access before the day, the empurau, which had travelled chilled, could not be processed when it should have been and had to be held frozen longer than intended. The over-freezing and its heavy ice-glaze drew the flesh thin and cut the usable yield. The hero of the River course fell short of what the dish required.

The response was the worked remedy the method exists to hold. The serviceable flesh was recovered by binding the thinned fillets with transglutaminase to lift the yield — a Modernist technique applied under duress and kept within the canon: empurau bound to empurau, the River course’s fish-collagen base uncrossed. A second consignment was hand-carried in checked cargo by a senior member of the delegation, roughly doubling the empurau that reached the service, when a formal re-consignment could not be arranged in time. Behind both remedies sat the safeguard the discipline exists to hold — the knowledge of how the fish is handled, preserved, and brought back to a working state, recorded so the team could act at the moment of failure, with or without the chef in the room. The course was served, to standard, across the four nights.

The fault is recorded as a handling rule for the method: over-freezing and glazing cost yield, and handling, not only sourcing, decides whether an ingredient survives the distance.

Where consignment loss across the alert period could not be recovered, Japanese substitutes were used through those services — the only honest pivot the circumstances allowed. The discipline knows when to bend so the work can continue. Mulu and Kuching, the chapters that followed, were where the world was invited to experience the authenticity of what French Borneo cuisine should be when the terroir blesses us with its bounties without compromising its vitality and fertility. Osaka bent under the tsunami; Mulu and Kuching held the discipline at full standing.

The narration on stage

Professor Gerard Bodeker, the platform’s scientific advisor, narrated each course on stage. The framing was deliberate — culinary anthropology, not theatrical commentary. Where a community’s knowledge sat behind a dish, that knowledge was named. Where an ingredient carried a medicinal lineage, that lineage was placed on a clear scientific footing the room could hold.

The narration honoured the discipline the work proceeds from: that knowledge transmitted through elders, foragers, and household kitchens deserves the same scholarly weight a French sauce or a Japanese kaiseki technique already commands.

The state authorisation — the documents on record

The Osaka showcase was conducted under formal veterinary authorisation from the State of Sarawak. The Sarawak Tourism Board served as the registered exporter; Atlas Collective Sdn. Bhd. as the importer of record. Frozen state-certified ingredients — Empurau, Tekuyung pasang, Midin, Paku fern — were shipped across two regulated legs under the Veterinary Public Health Ordinance 1999 of Sarawak [Cap. 32], Section 84(b), in alignment with the International Aquatic Animal Health Code published by the International Office of Epizootic, an agency of the World Health Organization.

The documentary basis sits on two forms, both issued at Kuching on 4 July 2025 by the State Veterinary Authority Sarawak:

• Permit to Export, Form B, Veterinary Public Health Ordinance 1999 — empurau, fifty units, exit port Kuching, valid sixty days.
• Certificate of Health for Animal and Fish, Form C, Section 84(b) — live empurau certified free of clinical disease.

The certification stipulated, on the form itself, that the goods were destined for the Serumpun cultural programme held in Osaka, Japan. The regulatory record is a small detail. It is also the kind of detail a properly held cultural-diplomacy mission accumulates.

The work of many hands — Osaka credits

Serumpun Sarawak at Osaka was carried within a formal partnership; the record is indebted to each party.

The Culinary Heritage and Arts Society Sarawak (CHASS) led the fieldwork and heritage research, and read the recipes, the narrations, and the menu language against a standard the communities themselves recognise as faithful. The Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Sarawak (MTCP) mandated the programme and vetted its materials through its own heritage office. The Sarawak Tourism Board and the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre lent institutional and scientific footing. The Borneo Cultural Museum and Atlas Collective supported the cultural and creative record. Professor Gerard Bodeker, the platform’s scientific advisor, framed the work and narrated it on stage at Osaka. The endorsement of UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy — Kuching, formalised in March 2026, recognised the conservation purpose the programme exists to serve.

The Osaka service was photographed by Bonnie Yap. The chapter film and the four-day Stories highlight on the Serumpun Sarawak Instagram channel were produced by Atlas Collective.

What the stage proved

The platform passed the test the founding year required of it: that the two complete traditions could be held in conversation at full strength without compromise to either, at international standing, with a scientific authority giving the medicinal claims their proper weight.

The cuisine moved. The discipline held. Mulu was waiting on the other side.

See the chapter

The recorded story of the Osaka chapter lives on the Serumpun Sarawak Instagram channel. The chapter film captures the work from preparation through to the stage; the Stories highlight gathers the daily record across the four-day showcase.

Watch the chapter film → Osaka, August 2025 — Stories highlight →

Film and highlights by Atlas Collective.