The Beginning

The original Brasserie Enfin opened at Oasis Square, Ara Damansara — Petaling Jaya, in the western suburbs of Kuala Lumpur — and held the room for roughly two years before relocating to Menara Hap Seng in early 2016 as Enfin by James Won. The format was bistro-French: the chef-owner's first restaurant, modest in footprint, considered in register.

During the same period, the kitchen also operated Bad Boy Cooks — an American-style restaurant — alongside Brasserie Enfin. The two-format register, fine-dining and casual-comfort held in parallel, was an early prefiguration of the dual disposition that later landed at MeatMore in 2023. The kitchen’s both fine dining and happy food operating philosophy did not begin at Bukit Bintang; it began at Oasis Square.

What distinguishes the chapter from a typical first-restaurant story is the press it earned at speed. By December 2014 — before Brasserie Enfin’s second New Year — The Star had carried two pieces, including its first major Krug Champagne feature with Chef James Won. By June 2015, Brasserie Enfin had hosted the Hennessy 250 Collector Blend tasting and pairing dinner — the Malaysian launch of the maison’s 250-year commemorative blend. By November 2014, Hennessy’s Appreciation Grows programme had brought the chef into pairing with 1-Star Michelin Chef Accursio Craparo of Sicily.

In short: Brasserie Enfin was, from its founding, already a venue where European maisons came to land. The room that followed at Menara Hap Seng was not a sudden ambition. It was a natural progression.

Identity and the Earliest Press (2014)

The Star’s New Year Feast for Friends (28 December 2014) is the earliest substantial press on Chef James Won as a restaurateur — capturing the chef in the year-end register at Brasserie Enfin and signalling the kitchen’s confidence with luxury-leaning fare.

Two weeks earlier, on 13 December 2014, The Star had carried Krug Champagne — A Touch of Majesty — the first Krug feature on the chef in any major outlet. The chapter is editorially significant: it precedes the formal Krug Ambassade induction by two years, and establishes that the Krug relationship began at Brasserie Enfin, not at the later fine-dining Enfin at Menara Hap Seng.

Krug Champagne — A Touch of Majesty.

The Star · 13 December 2014

Hennessy at Brasserie Enfin (2014 – 2015)

The Hennessy chapter at Brasserie Enfin began even earlier than the Krug chapter on the public record. In November 2014, Hennessy’s Appreciation Grows programme came to Kuala Lumpur, and the chef was paired with 1-Star Michelin Chef Accursio Craparo from Sicily. Tatler Asia, Rebecca Saw, and The Star (8 November 2014) carried the chapter; The Star’s framing — Two Chefs and a Famous Cognac Create a Cuisine for Gourmands — placed Chef James Won alongside European Michelin company at the very beginning of his public chapter with the maison.

In June – July 2015, Hennessy returned to Brasserie Enfin for the Hennessy 250 Collector Blend tasting and pairing dinner — the maison’s commemorative blend marking 250 years of the house. Isaac Tan and FoodMsia covered the evening; FoodMsia’s framing of aromatic tones ranging from herbal […] balance of subtlety and complexity captured the register the kitchen has held with Hennessy ever since.

Two years before the formal Ambassade. Three years before the Hennessy Salon at Menara Hap Seng.

Aromatic tones ranging from herbal […] balance of subtlety and complexity.

FoodMsia · July 2015 · Hennessy 250 Collector Blend at Brasserie Enfin

Glenmorangie at Brasserie Enfin (August 2014)

Two months earlier than even the Hennessy chapter, Esquire Malaysia online (4 August 2014) had captured Whisky for Dinner — a four-course Glenmorangie degustation at Brasserie Enfin pairing three Glenmorangie expressions (The Original, 18 Years Old, Signet) against an Asian-French menu. It is the kitchen’s earliest documented single-malt-Highland chapter, and places Glenmorangie alongside Krug and Hennessy as the third maison partnership documented at Brasserie Enfin in 2014.

Three Cluster 1 maisons engaging the kitchen in its founding year — the Highland register among them — is editorially distinctive. The maison-partnership density that later matured into the formal Krug Ambassade and Hennessy Salon was already operational, course by course, in a bistro at Oasis Square in 2014.

Critical and Lifestyle Reception

By early 2016, the Malaysian press had begun to treat Brasserie Enfin as a venue worthy of named attention. Oriental Daily’s Chinese-language coverage on 26 February 2016 carried the kitchen on the public record of the Sinophone Malaysian community as a chef of French cuisine. The Star’s Brasserie Enfin Is A New Won-derland feature on 10 April 2016 marked the moment the relocation to Menara Hap Seng was being signalled — and the Won-derland framing captured the editorial affection the chef’s first restaurant had earned.

UFood / Oriental Daily carried the chef’s New Year flavours feature — 大厨的年味故事 — 下 — on 21 January 2017, after the relocation, with the kitchen’s Brasserie Enfin years already part of the public memory.

The Closing Chapter — Transition to Menara Hap Seng

In early 2016, the kitchen relocated from Oasis Square to Menara Hap Seng, Kuala Lumpur. The new room would carry the name Enfin by James Won and the formal fine-dining format. The Krug Chef’s Table opened in April 2016, the Krug Ambassade induction (first Malaysian) was confirmed on the public record around the same time, the Hennessy Salon at Menara Hap Seng (world’s only) followed in November 2016.

The Brasserie Enfin years were the foundation. Without the early 2014 Krug press, the August 2014 Glenmorangie Whisky for Dinner degustation, the November 2014 Hennessy Appreciation Grows with Accursio Craparo, and the 2015 Hennessy 250 Collector Blend launch, the maisons’ confidence in the kitchen at Menara Hap Seng would not have been there. The first room earned the second.