Cognac, Caviar, Country

A house like Louis XIII does not change easily. The decanter is unchanged. The blend — eau-de-vie aged for up to a century — is unchanged. The pairing partners chosen for each global activation are chosen, not improvised.

In 2022, the global Louis XIII activation came to Kuala Lumpur. The campaign name carried the maison’s editorial register cleanly — Les Voyages du Caviar. Hosted at Shin’Labo by James Won at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL across April – June 2022.

And one element changed.

The maison’s protocol called for caviar from a French house. Chef James Won asked, instead, for T’lur — the Malaysian caviar producer working with Kaluga and Amur Sturgeon roe, not yet on the international press radar, raising fish to global standard at a producer in Malaysia.

The maison agreed. Les Voyages du Caviar went out, that year, with Malaysian caviar at the centre of the pairing — the first time Malaysian caviar had been placed on the Louis XIII global stage. The chapter is recorded by First Classe (29 April 2022), The Peak (19 May 2022), Buro 24/7 (20 May 2022), The Edge Options (21 May 2022), and Nanyang in Chinese-language register (18 June 2022).

It is one of the clearest single moments in the chef’s portfolio of what brand work, held with restraint, can do for a national producer.

What Was Asked, and What Was Said

The Enanyang account preserves the chef’s own framing of the request. He told the maison, in effect, that other countries had used French-house caviar for the same activation; he asked, on behalf of Malaysia, for something different — a breakthrough. The maison’s reply was, in effect: if you have the confidence in the producer, we will have the confidence in you.

The reply matters. Louis XIII is not a maison that grants such requests lightly. The activation went out as proposed.

The Plate — Cognac and Caviar

The Options / The Edge feature — Louis XIII Celebrates Cognac and Caviar at New Yoshoku-Inspired Shin’Labo Restaurant KL — recorded the activation as it landed at Shin’Labo (Mitsui Lalaport KL). The pairing was direct: Louis XIII alongside T’lur caviar, served in formats that honoured both the cognac’s century-long ageing and the producer’s craft.

Around the central pairing, the Enanyang feature describes a series of “egg” expressions — sea urchin, chicken egg yolk, native quail egg, all framed as foils to the caviar — building toward a Caviar & Uni 挞 (caviar and sea urchin tart) that the press described as the most striking dish of the evening.

Form-wise, the menu read as classical luxury. Source-wise, it carried Malaysian heritage at its centre.

So commonplace has yoshoku become […] cognac and caviar.

Options / The Edge, 2022

The Producer — T’lur

T’lur is one of the few Malaysian aquaculture producers raising caviar at international standard. Kaluga and Amur Sturgeon are the source species — both prized in the global caviar market, both rare in Southeast Asian production. By bringing T’lur into the Louis XIII activation, Chef James Won placed a Malaysian producer into the global LVMH conversation about provenance.

The chapter sits in the Collaborations cornerstone (Cluster 6 — Producers and Terroir) as the editorial bridge between brand work and conservation work. It is the kind of placement that does not happen by accident.

The Continuing Register

After the closure of Shin’Labo in 2025, the Louis XIII × T’lur activation passed into the historical record. The chapter does not require an active room to keep its weight — it set a precedent that may, in time, be matched by other Asian producers entering the Louis XIII global conversation.

What endures is the principle: when a maison comes to Malaysia, the maison should leave knowing more about Malaysia than it knew on arrival.