The World’s 10 Best Malaysian & Singaporean Restaurants
Explore ten malaysian & singaporean restaurants around the world, from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Singapore. Discover the restaurants and plan your next dining experience.
Dewakan
Malaysia
Dewakan serves a Malaysian tasting menu on level 48 of Naza Tower in Kuala Lumpur’s Platinum Park. Its name combines the Malay words for god and food, reflecting a kitchen focused on the country’s produce and the people behind it. Most ingredients are grown, planted or reared in Malaysia. Dinner progresses through a succession of dishes shaped by seasonal availability. Wine pairings and a non-alcoholic pairing provide different accompaniments to the tasting menu. Dietary requirements need to be discussed in advance, as adaptations require notice and remain at the kitchen’s discretion. The elevated city setting frames a meal whose principal interest lies in Malaysian ingredients.
Candlenut
Singapore
Candlenut explores Peranakan cooking through the family traditions that shaped chef Malcolm Lee. At Dempsey Road, his kitchen brings a contemporary sensibility to Straits-Chinese food while retaining the spices and inherited recipes that give the cuisine its identity. The choice includes an à la carte menu and the playfully named Ah-Ma-Kase experience, offered at lunch and dinner. Meals are designed around the pleasure of sharing, encouraging diners to discover how different dishes work together across the table. The 90-seat dining room, designed by Paola Navone of OTTO Studio, continues that dialogue between heritage and the present. Modern interiors incorporate Peranakan details, providing a considered backdrop without turning the room into a historical reconstruction. Candlenut is an engaging address for visitors seeking a fuller understanding of Singapore’s food culture. It offers both a connection to home cooking and a chef’s individual interpretation, with enough range to reward a communal meal and a willingness to try unfamiliar flavours.
Rasa Sayang
London, UK
Rasa Sayang is a restaurant in London, UK.
Mamak
Sydney, Australia
Mamak is a Malaysian restaurant in Sydney, and the branch identified here is the Chinatown address at 15 Goulburn Street in Haymarket. The business says its first restaurant opened in the Sydney CBD in 2007, and this branch sits within that central city setting. Service is intentionally informal: the Haymarket restaurant does not take reservations, which suits its role as a walk-in dining room in one of Sydney’s busiest eating precincts and gives it a direct, straightforward style. The food centres on Malaysian street-food staples, particularly roti, satay, curries and sambal dishes. The menu includes roti canai, roti telur, roti planta, roti bawang and roti telur bawang, alongside the taller, sweeter roti tisu. Satay is offered with chicken or beef. Curry choices include kari ayam, kari ikan, kari kambing and kari sayur, while sambal udang and sambal sotong bring seafood and chilli-led options into the range. Together, those dishes define the restaurant’s core style clearly. The menu extends beyond breads and skewers into a broader hawker-style spread of noodles, rice dishes, vegetables and richer cooked items, allowing tables to mix lighter and more substantial plates. Vegetable options include kangkung belacan and kacang panjang belacan. Some dishes are specifically marked as taking longer to prepare, including murtabak and roti bom, which distinguishes them from faster menu items and suggests extra assembly or cooking time. That mix supports both quick individual meals and more varied shared ordering. Alongside restaurant dining, Mamak also offers catering. Its catering menu includes satay, curries, fried chicken, rice, noodles and drinks, with orders arranged for pick-up. The broader brand traces its beginnings to three friends and inspiration from Kuala Lumpur street-stall culture, an identity that continues to shape the Haymarket branch. In practice, this Sydney restaurant comes across as a casual city venue focused on roti, curries, satay and shared savoury dishes, rather than a formal or heavily staged dining format.
Beta KL
Malaysia
Beta KL is a contemporary Malaysian restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, set at Cormar Suites on Jalan Perak in the city centre. The official website identifies it as a concept by The KARLS Group, while Michelin lists the restaurant at Lot 3 & 4, GF, Cormar Suites, 10 Jalan Perak, Kuala Lumpur 50450, Malaysia. Together, those sources place Beta as a focused dining room devoted to modern interpretations of Malaysian cooking and culinary heritage. Its dining offer is built around a ‘Tour of Malaysia’ menu, presented as a tasting journey through the country’s flavours and regional influences. The menu page says dinner is planned for around 2.5 hours and includes seafoods and vegetables, a few meat courses and sweet treats, with beverage pairings available. Beta also notes that dietary restriction accommodation may be possible with 48 hours’ advance notice, which helps define the experience as carefully staged and intentionally paced. The restaurant’s own description emphasises storytelling, saying each dish is meant to reflect Malaysia’s diverse cultural background. Michelin echoes that approach, describing the room as theatrical and noting the use of modern techniques and meticulous plating. That combination suggests a polished, contemporary meal in which visual presentation and technique are central, while the flavours remain rooted in recognisable Malaysian references rather than detached fine-dining abstraction. Practical details on the contact page show dinner service from Tuesday to Sunday, with extended hours on Friday and Saturday, and a reservation link alongside WhatsApp and email contact options. Beta does not present itself as an à la carte restaurant; instead, it offers a fixed-format tasting menu that gives the kitchen clear scope to shape the sequence and rhythm of the meal. The result is a distinctive Kuala Lumpur address with a strong narrative identity and a precise culinary focus.
Seroja
Singapore
Seroja is a restaurant at DUO Galleria in Singapore’s Bugis area, at 7 Fraser Street, and its official material identifies it as a 2,700-square-foot dining room in the heart of the development. The restaurant presents itself around the Malay Archipelago, with a name taken from the Malay word for lotus, and the setting is described by the operator as an open-kitchen space with counter seating as well as tables for small groups. The cooking is organised as tasting menus at lunch and dinner, with the current official menu listing Kuntum for lunch and Nusantara for dinner. Dishes shown on the restaurant’s own pages include spot prawn with asam pedas sauce, braised beef tripe and cheeks, mangrove wood-charred seafood, silver pomfret with jade abalone, lamb percik, duck percik and seasonal desserts such as wild basil sorbet and muah chee, suggesting a menu built from regional flavours, herbs and seafood. Seroja’s reservations and information pages state that the restaurant is open Tuesdays to Saturdays for dinner, with lunch on Fridays and Saturdays, and it advises allowing several hours for the meal. The restaurant says its food contains no pork or alcohol, that its meat is sourced from halal sources, and that it cannot accommodate vegan or gluten-free menus that require the removal of core ingredients such as seafood, coconut, soy, alliums, herbs, spices and gluten. The operator also emphasises provenance and collaboration, naming farmers, fishermen, artisans and growers from Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere around the archipelago. Its own team page identifies chef-owner Kevin Wong, head chef Andrew Ou and general manager Long Tran, while the restaurant story highlights its intention to celebrate familiar flavours through produce-led cooking and a dining experience shaped by regional craft and ingredients.
Kopitiam
New York, USA
Kopitiam is a fast-casual Malaysian restaurant in the Lower East Side of New York, at 151 East Broadway, New York, NY 10002. The business states that it is home to Nyonya cuisine and operates without reservations, with guests ordering at the register before seating themselves. Its site presents the restaurant as a neighbourhood gathering place rather than a formal dining room, and notes both indoor and outdoor dining. The family-led operation also describes its community ties and the continuation of recipes carried forward by chef-owner Kyo Pang. The menu centres on Malaysian and Nyonya dishes, including nasi lemak with coconut rice, ikan bilis, cucumber, egg and sambal, kaya butter toast, Malaysian-style half-boiled eggs, fish ball soup, pan mee, and a range of snacks such as curry puffs, pandan chicken, lobak and otak otak. Drinks include traditional kopi and teh service, along with house specialties such as barley wintermelon, lychee bandung and Milo Dinosaur. The restaurant marks vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and pescatarian items on the menu and says it does not use MSG. Kopitiam’s service style is casual and practical, with the kitchen offering set meals as well as à la carte breakfast, snacks and mains. Several dishes are prepared to order and some are flagged for limited availability, which suggests a menu that changes with supply and preparation time. The restaurant also states that it is not halal, and advises guests with allergies or dietary restrictions to inform staff before ordering. Overall, Kopitiam offers a compact, street-facing dining experience shaped by Malaysian kopi-shop culture and Penang-influenced family cooking. The emphasis is on familiar comfort dishes, handmade noodles, savoury rice plates and sweet drinks, rather than elaborate table service. Its Lower East Side setting, walk-in format and broad menu make it a distinctive casual option for diners seeking Malaysian flavours in central Manhattan.
Papparich
Australia
Papparich is a restaurant in Australia.
Sambal Shiok
London, UK
Sambal Shiok is a restaurant in London, UK.
Labyrinth
Singapore
Labyrinth is a Singapore restaurant at Esplanade Mall, 8 Raffles Avenue #02-23, in the city’s civic and theatre district. The official site identifies it as a Michelin-starred restaurant founded by Chef LG Han, with the current home page describing it as a refined exploration of Singapore’s culinary heritage. The location page gives access details via City Hall and Esplanade MRT, with the dining room reached on level 2 of the mall. The restaurant’s food is presented as new Singaporean cuisine, with tasting menus built around Chef Han’s personal Singapore story and local flavours. The menu pages state that the kitchen is seafood-centric and organised as multi-course tasting menus, with lunch and dinner formats that vary by season. The restaurant also notes that menus are not fixed online because they change with produce availability. Labyrinth’s official pages indicate a full-service fine-dining experience rather than an a la carte venue. Guests are told to allow around three hours for dinner, and the site lists private and corporate enquiry options, suggesting a strongly reservation-led operation. The team page also names key front-of-house and kitchen staff, including a maitre d’ and beverage director, which supports a structured dining service. The atmosphere appears rooted in contemporary Singaporean storytelling rather than generic luxury. Labyrinth says its mission is to create episodes that invoke the senses through memories and narratives, and its dietaries guidance shows a highly specialised kitchen with limits on certain vegetarian and allergen requests. Taken together, the restaurant presents itself as a carefully staged tasting-room experience focused on Singapore identity, seafood and considered service.