Andrew Wong is not just any restaurateur. With well-known F&B establishments like Acme Bar + Coffee (ABC) and Delirium Café to his name, he is also responsible for preserving long-lost generational Malay recipes through his fine dining restaurant OpenHouse.

A graphic design graduate, Wong fell into the F&B business after working on design and lifestyle projects. In 2012, he and his co-partner Brian Quirk unveiled their first ABC outlet in The Troika, acclaimed for its chic design and innovative menu.

Encouraged by the response, they opened two more ABC outlets and followed up with a new venture, the Delirium Café, a Belgian craft-beer franchise. Wong then had the idea of a Malay fine dining restaurant, serving ancestral recipes that are hard to find today. To source for these recipes, Wong sent his staff back to their hometowns.

A design maximalist’s dream, OpenHouse is probably one of the only restaurants in Kuala Lumpur that offers pecel (peanut sauce) salad, horsehoe crab-roe kerabu, smoked duck with ciku (pear-like fruit) salsa, sup ekor kepayang (oxtail soup) and glutinous pitcher-plant rice. All dishes are made from scratch using traditional techniques and natural produce, including those sourced from the rainforest.