Kota Damansara restaurant Carbon puts people first

“Smoking is an important technique here. It adds nuance to our dishes. I mean, raw scallops taste different but add a hint of pine smoke and it elevates it so much. We smoke with what we have around us. We use the pine leaves from trees we own, local mangrove tree wood, and binchotan sourced from Malaysia,” explains Tay. While the menu is nothing short of a work of art, our conversation is dominated not by the restaurant’s food, but its philosophy of putting people at the forefront of its operation.

Carbon’s menus rotate on a seasonal basis, showcasing not only ingredients from local artisans, but the skillsets of each chef behind the restaurant’s dishes. “The whole team is involved in menu curation. It’s incredibly challenging to merge six different personalities into one menu cohesively. We’ll have really passionate discourse about cuisine, about culture, the essence of what they’re trying to do in a dish and how to honour it.”

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The kitchen of Carbon is a living, breathing eco-system—one that takes pride in nurturing the culinary prowesses of each of its resident chefs. Often playing host to collaborative dining experiences with local producers, the first time I visited Carbon was to attend a Japanese tea ceremony and dinner showcasing Chabashira Tea Roastery’s brews. Tay explains this was hosted at Carbon to give one of the restaurant’s chefs a platform “to showcase her passions and strengths because she is predominantly trained in Japanese cuisine.”

“I’ll always see how they (Carbon’s chefs) light up when they’re in the corner as I’m introducing the item they’ve made. They have a really great platform to grow and they get to see themselves in the menu. I’m always trying to keep the team happy, in the sense that they’re well-fed, nourished mentally, and keep their passions alive,” he adds.

Carbon currently offers its dishes in the form of tasting menus, equipped with plates that feature Chocolate Concierge’s Semai chocolate, a tobiko-topped take on pie tee, and flame-kissed octopus paired with bunga kantan sambal, but come January, the restaurant will also begin to offer a la carte plates. It’s a pivot that Tay says will facilitate the growth of team even further, a pivot involving dishes like cod fish with a miso yuzu glaze and black garlic sauce, brined short ribs finished over charcoal, octopus with orange spice aioli, and potatoes transformed into unbelievably crisp morsels with the help of duck fat.

Collaborations with homegrown talents will still remain integral to Carbon, as part of its people-first approach. “Being small businesses, it’s important to leverage each other’s strengths. People (customers) also want to see value in terms of what you’re doing—something new. But I also want collaborations to bring value to the team more than anything else. We work with BoomGrow (a local indoor farm) who are always open to showing us their facility, Psychotic Operator (a wine bar) where we’ll be pairing our food with their wine expertise,” Tay elaborates.

Beyond the dining room, the team goes on regular excursions from whitewater rafting and visiting organic farms to an upcoming trip to Cameron Highlands for an inside look at local commercial farming. “I was brought up in old-school kitchen culture—harsh treatment, long hours—but here, we’ve never raised our voices and the cooking is quite fantastic. The team is really passionate,” he continues.

As Carbon moves into its second year of operation, the restaurant is continuing to redefine what it means to exist within the local dining industry, championing a philosophy that celebrates the talented individuals behind its success as much as the food on the plate.

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