Hennessy

The Hennessy chapter begins earlier than the Ambassade — and earlier, even, than the Krug chapter on the public record. The 2014 Hennessy X.O Appreciation Grows — In Good Company series came to Kuala Lumpur from 30 September to 4 October 2014 as part of the maison's global ambassadorial programme. Five evenings; two co-chefs; one cognac.

Chef James Won was paired with Chef Accursio Craparo — 1-Star Michelin, owner of Accursio Ristorante in Sciacca, Sicily; first Michelin star earned 2008 — in what the Prestige September 2014 preview noted as the first time the Appreciation Grows series featured two chefs at one event.

The chapter was carried at primary-source register by Audrey Wong, Prestige Malaysia September 2014 (pages 210–211 of the Indulgence section), with the China Press preview of 15 August 2014 and the China Press advertorial of 30 August 2014 surfacing the In Good Company (好伴同行) theme in Chinese-language register. The Star’s post-event coverage on 8 November 2014 carried the chapter’s defining single line — Two Chefs and a Famous Cognac Create a Cuisine for Gourmands — placing Chef James Won alongside European Michelin company at the very beginning of his public chapter with Hennessy.

We’re both from different backgrounds but we’re able to communicate through the language of food.

Accursio Craparo · Prestige Malaysia (Audrey Wong), September 2014

Six months later, in summer 2015, the Hennessy 250 Collector Blend — the maison’s commemorative blend marking 250 years of the house — was launched in Malaysia at Brasserie Enfin with a tasting and pairing dinner. Brasserie Enfin was the maison’s Malaysian launch venue (June – July 2015). Isaac Tan and FoodMsia covered the evening. FoodMsia’s framing — aromatic tones ranging from herbal […] balance of subtlety and complexity — captured the register the kitchen has held with Hennessy ever since: subtlety as the operating principle, complexity carried with restraint.

Two years before the formal Ambassade. Three years before the Salon.

Malaysia’s First Hennessy Ambassador (2016)

Sin Chew Daily’s November 2016 feature — Hennessy XO 荣誉呈献·2016 年极致赏宴之旅 — named Chef James Won as Malaysia’s first Hennessy Ambassador, alongside the parallel Krug distinction. The piece recorded a parallel collaboration with Chef Nurdin Topham — founder of Michelin-starred Nur in Hong Kong; pedigree includes working with Raymond Blanc and at the Nordic Food Lab set up by Noma’s René Redzepi.

The Ambassade was the formal frame. What followed in the same year placed the relationship into a category of its own.

The Hennessy Salon at Enfin — The World’s First

The Hennessy Salon is the maison’s most prestigious dining accolade — combining culinary artistry and exceptional service into a single recognised distinction, awarded by Hennessy to a single restaurant at a time.

In 2016, Enfin by James Won (Menara Hap Seng) became the world’s first Hennessy Salon — confirmed at primary-source register by The Edge Options of 7 November 2016 (“the world’s first Hennessy salon”) and by Star2 / The Star Online of 29 October 2016 by Suzanne Lazaroo (“James Won is the owner of Enfin by James Won, which features the world’s first Hennessy Salon, a private space with an amazing vertical library of the precious Cognac”).

The Salon held ten guests at its private table — bird’s-eye view of Jalan P Ramlee through floor-to-ceiling glass; cellar of Hennessy Cognacs dating to the 1930s; bespoke wood panelling and shelved cognac display. Surfacing the Salon at the upper level of Enfin’s spiral-staircase architecture, alongside the Krug Ambassade work.

The distinction stood through Enfin’s operation; at closure, the world’s first Hennessy Salon at the time of its operation passed into the historical record.

The 2016 Hennessy Odyssey — Sabah, Land Below the Wind

In late 2016, Hennessy X.O Appreciation Grows evolved into the Hennessy Odyssey at Enfin by James Won. The chapter’s editorial centre was a Sabah-themed menu — Land Below the Wind — using ingredients predominantly from Sabah to highlight Hennessy X.O’s seven tasting notes / seven chapters. Co-chef Nurdin Topham developed the menu alongside Chef James Won; the kitchen’s foraging-and-fermentation register and Hennessy’s seven-chapter cognac architecture met across the same plates.

The Odyssey ran in two phases: invitation-only dinners from 31 October to 5 November 2016, followed by public availability from 7 to 30 November 2016 at RM999 per person. Star2 / The Star Online (Suzanne Lazaroo, 29 October 2016) and The Edge Options (7 November 2016) carried the chapter at primary-source register.

With this new platform, we are looking at breaking rules, changing structure. The emphasis on local ingredients is a huge difference. Hennessy X.O works well with Asian cuisine, and local herbs and spices bring out previously hidden dimensions in it.

James Won · Star2 (Suzanne Lazaroo), 29 October 2016

The opening course set the chapter’s editorial register: an “egg” infused with torch ginger flower and citrus — actually almond milk — served with naturally briny oyster leaf and ice plant. The cuisine arrived as cuisine; the cognac met it where it was.

Tapestry Malaysia × Hennessy — The Six-Senses Series

The most photographed chapter of the Hennessy years was the Tapestry Malaysia × Hennessy collaboration — a series of six-senses multi-sensory immersive dinners staged at Enfin (Menara Hap Seng), pairing the cognac with the chef’s degustation discipline and Tapestry Malaysia’s immersive-dining design.

Robb Report Malaysia carried Hennessy × Chef James Won × Tapestry Malaysia Weave Together Immersive Dining Experience — recording lobster bisque with ice plant under glowing digital fireflies, and the peg of Hennessy XO that Prestige Online (Indonesia) named as the chapter’s signature. Options / The Edge carried the Hennessy × Enfin × Tapestry Malaysia coverage. Lifestyle blogger Ivy Aiwei recorded the August 2018 chapter at Menara Hap Seng — the six senses experience — at length.

It was, in its own way, the closest the Enfin years came to dining as theatre.

In addition to the Tapestry Malaysia × Hennessy series, BURO 24/7’s A Culinary Odyssey with Hennessy X.O at Enfin recorded the maison’s Vinyl-Powered dining concept at Enfin — a register where the cognac, the music programme, and the kitchen’s degustation discipline carried the evening together. The framing — “styles in one epicurean adventure” — captures one of the more cross-disciplinary registers in the entire Hennessy chapter, and prefigures the music-pairing tradition that would later mature into the Krug Music Pairing register.

H-Gourmet Vietnam — The Regional Chapter (May 2018)

In May 2018, the Hennessy chapter travelled. H-Gourmet brought the kitchen’s Hennessy X.O register to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam — a press-conference and gourmet-dinner programme staging French culinary technique against Vietnamese ingredients, anchored by the maison’s editorial frame: “Vietnam sở hữu nguồn nguyên liệu đáng tự hào” — Vietnam possesses a source of ingredients to be proud of.

The Saigon chapter was carried by nine Vietnamese press articles — Elle Man Vietnam (printed and online); The Thao Van Hoa & Dan Ong; Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam; Esquire Vietnam; Doanh Nhân Saigon; Party In Saigon; and the earned online PR placement at Sunflower (Tiếp thị & Gia đình). Top-engagement KOL: Hannah Nguyen.

H-Gourmet placed the Hennessy chapter on a multi-jurisdictional editorial record. The kitchen’s Hennessy work spans Kuala Lumpur (2014, 2015, 2016) → Saigon (2018) → onwards — not a Malaysia-only chapter; a continuous regional cultural-diplomacy partnership across four years.

The Maison-Side Counterpart

The Ambassade and Salon work has been carried, on the maison side, by the Moët Hennessy Diageo Malaysia team — under the leadership of Manuel Reman, President-Directeur. The relationship is institutional and personal at once: Krug, Hennessy, and the wider Moët Hennessy portfolio sit under one roof in Malaysia, and the Ambassade work has matured alongside the same maison-side counterparts, year after year.

The Continuing Register

The Hennessy chapter does not have an active second act — the Salon was the apex, and Enfin was its room. What carries forward is the register: cognac as the ingredient that earns its place at the table not through pairing notes but through proper dining, in proper company, at proper proportion.

In 2025, when the chef pivoted from operating restaurants to conservation and culinary diplomacy, the Hennessy register travelled with him. The discipline a Salon imposes on a kitchen does not leave the kitchen when the room closes.