From Melbourne to Singapore: how 3 acclaimed chefs interpret Natural Colour for The Macallan’s Master of Colours II

Building the menu meant working in reverse. McIver and his team started with each of The Macallan’s six colours, unpacking the story behind every shade before choosing Australian ingredients that could express it honestly.

Green channels The Macallan Estate through a crystal snow crab emulsion with rock oysters, shiso, sorrel and sea parsley, while blue evokes the rivers of Speyside through blue cod with midnight pearl potatoes, algae and scampi caviar. Both are paired with The Macallan Sherry Oak 18 Years Old, whose sweet and rich profile complements the dishes. Red comes through in Western Australian marron with XO sauce, marron sambal and blood lime—the latter’s sour, astringent edge cutting through the richness of The Macallan Sherry Oak 25 Years Old.

To match the depth of each expression, McIver intensified seasoning, layered textures and pushed bolder flavour contrasts, drawing out new dimensions in both food and dram. “With its rich age statements, oak influences and intricate flavour profiles, the world of whisky comes alive when paired with food,” McIver reflects. Through the Master of Colours menu, he invites guests to discover how naturally The Macallan complements a fine dining experience.

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Meta chef-owner Sun Kim has long been fascinated by the quiet transformations that happen in the kitchen: a purple sweet potato turning blue when folded into cream and butter; the crimson scales of a golden eye snapper emerging amber after intense heat; soy-pickled vegetables deepening into earthy brown. These shifts are subtle, almost alchemical, and entirely natural. For the Korean chef, they are among the most beautiful moments in cooking.

That philosophy made The Macallan’s Master of Colours collaboration a great fit for Kim, who sees it as a meeting of minds. Just as The Macallan’s whiskies develop their colour without artificial additives, none finds its way onto the plates at Meta either. “We don’t use colouring in the restaurant,” says Kim. “I love watching how raw ingredients change visually through heat and cooking.”

In creating the six-course menu, Kim started with flavour rather than colour. By exploring how different ages and cask types expressed themselves, he crafted each dish around the whisky’s character before figuring out how seasonal ingredients could complement its profile. “We tasted The Macallan whiskies first, built the pairing, then brainstormed how to achieve the colour naturally.”

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Kim’s menu seamlessly progresses through The Macallan’s spectrum of colours, opening in off-white with the bigfin squid sashimi, tofu in pine nut sauce and radish salad. This dish is complemented by the lighter profile of The Macallan Sherry Oak 18 Years Old.

From there it moves to green, which feels instinctive for a chef whose cuisine regularly features seaweed. Cold seaweed noodles with zucchini mandu are paired with The Macallan Sherry Oak 30 Years Old, its sweeter notes complementing the dish’s vegetal freshness.

The spectrum deepens into amber with scale-on golden eye snapper: cooked over high heat, its red scales crisp into a burnished hue, mirroring The Macallan Sherry Oak 30 Years Old, whose citrus, apple and toasted nut notes echo the fish’s sweetness. From here, Kim turns to red for a Meta signature: blue lobster, egg custard with chilli and minari oil, paired with The Macallan Sherry Oak 25 Years Old.

Beyond showcasing colour, Kim hopes the menu will broaden perceptions of whisky at the dining table. He believes each expression has a distinct texture and personality capable of elevating a multi-course meal. “Every The Macallan whisky has a different character,” he says. “I want diners to discover how beautifully it pairs with different cuisines.”

Long before Maison Dunand became one of Bangkok’s most distinctive restaurants, the French Alps had already shaped chef-owner Arnaud Dunand’s palate. Growing up in the Savoie region, he recalls mountains blanketed in white snow, alpine streams running thick with herbs and watercress, and afternoons spent foraging for mushrooms with his grandfather before drying them for the colder months ahead. These memories continue to guide the way he cooks today, giving his cuisine a distinct sense of place.

It was this same landscape that Dunand turned to when The Macallan invited him to interpret The Macallan’s Natural Colour through an exclusive menu. “When I designed the pairing for The Macallan, I first thought about the concept of Maison Dunand,” he says. “I still wanted to use products and techniques from the French and Italian Alps. After that, I thought about how to put The Macallan’s six colours in motion.”

Rather than adapting dishes already on his menu, Dunand began with colour itself, asking what each one meant to him growing up, before choosing the Alpine ingredients that could carry that meaning to the plate. From there, he built a six-course menu for Master of Colours, pairing each dish with The Macallan expression chosen to draw out its character.

White appears as omble chevalier (Arctic char fish) with almond and citrus, paired with The Macallan Double Cask 15 Years Old—its creamy sweetness enhancing the richness of the fish. Brown arrives as wild mushrooms with liquorice, a nod to foraging fungi in the mountains, paired with The Macallan Double Cask 18 Years Old. Blue comes through in the ice cream, crafted from cream and whisky. Paired with walnuts and crunchy toppings coloured with blue pea flower, its decadent profile meets its match in The Macallan Sherry Oak 18 Years Old.

With every course, Dunand wants diners to take away more than a meal. He wants them to leave having gone on a culinary journey through the Alps, where each colour reflects a place, each ingredient carries a memory, and each whisky reveals another layer of the story. In many ways, it is tied to The Macallan’s belief that the most meaningful expressions are never created artificially, but earned naturally.

For the second edition of Master of Colours, chefs Clinton McIver of Amaru (Melbourne), Sun Kim of Meta (Singapore) and Arnaud Dunand of Maison Dunand (Bangkok) have each created exclusive menus inspired by The Macallan’s Six Pillars. Selected dishes from these menus will feature in their seasonal pairing experiences this November.

Meet the award-winning chefs who headlined The Macallan’s culinary programme last year with exclusive menus inspired by its Six Pillars

Kirk Westaway, Jaan by Kirk Westaway (Singapore)

For the inaugural Master of Colours, chef Kirk Westaway translated The Macallan’s philosophy of Natural Colour into an exclusive six-course menu inspired by the changing seasons. “Seasons guide our menus,” said Westaway, who drew on nature’s evolving palette to interpret The Macallan’s Six Pillars. After tasting The Macallan Sherry Oak 18, 25 and 30 Years Old, he created dishes that reflected the unique character and complexity of each expression. In his words, the pairing demonstrated how “a touch of The Macallan whisky helps bring out different contrasts, allowing you to detect the inherent flavours of the dishes.”

Pichaya “Pam” Soontornyanakij, Potong (Bangkok)

For chef Pichaya “Pam” Soontornyanakij of Potong, colour is deeply personal. “Natural colours can represent a mood, a time and an energy,” she said, using that philosophy to craft her exclusive Master of Colours menu. Each dish served as an expression of memory and emotion—from her signature aged duck, which harked back to exceptional oak casks, to a reimagined black chicken pastry inspired by the intensity of red. “The Master of Colours menu is meant to provoke, comfort and surprise—just like the best memories do,” declared Chef Pam, demonstrating how craftsmanship, heritage and colour seamlessly unite in both whisky and food.

Hoàng Tùng, Å by Tung (Ho Chi Minh City)

For chef Hoàng Tùng of Å by Tung, Master of Colours provided an opportunity to express Vietnamese identity through the lens of The Macallan’s Six Pillars. “I was thrilled to participate in Master of Colours, which allowed us to integrate our menu with The Macallan’s Six Pillars,” he says. From a vibrant green oyster dish featuring northern Vietnamese Dongsu guava to a reimagined pho inspired by The Macallan’s iconic red, each course celebrated natural colour while showcasing the creativity of modern Vietnamese cuisine. For Tùng, the collaboration also reflects a growing appreciation for whisky pairings within Vietnam’s evolving fine-dining scene.

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