The Ritual of Fire and Meat

In October 2023, MeatMore opened at Bukit Bintang — a SoHo-format steakhouse and cocktail bar in the heart of Kuala Lumpur's hospitality district. The format placed the chef's portfolio in a register the kitchen had not previously held: meat as protagonist, fire as discipline, the cocktail bar as parallel architecture to the dining room.

Free Malaysia Today’s coverage on 27 October 2023 carried the chapter’s defining single line — MeatMore Elevates the Grilling of Meat to a Ritual. The Yum List, the same month, captured the room’s atmosphere and its cultural reference points: “a trendy SoHo […] New York and very trendy.” Together, the two pieces placed MeatMore on the public record as the most casually contemporary register the kitchen had operated in across twelve years of restaurant work.

The chapter is now past-tense. MeatMore closed in 2024, the year before Shin’Labo. What endures is the Mortlach Room — the dedicated single-malt-and-meat pairing salon developed in partnership with Mortlach (Diageo) and housed within MeatMore — and the principle the room argued: that ageing, properly applied, can carry a meal.

The MeatMore Format — SoHo, Bukit Bintang

The MeatMore format was deliberate. SoHo — small office, home office — translated to a hospitality register that sat at intermediate scale: not the fine-dining room of Enfin, not the yōshoku salon of Shin’Labo, not the casual bistro of Bouchon Enfin. MeatMore brought a different vocabulary again — meat-led, fire-led, with the cocktail bar as the room’s social architecture, and the culture of Omotenashi — the Japanese hospitality philosophy of wholehearted, anticipatory service — as the operational register beneath the contemporary aesthetic.

MeatMore was the first venue concept of Meat Collective Group — the operating organisation founded in early 2023 to build multi-outlet concepts. The bar programme was led by Japan’s Grand Champion in Mixology and Flaring — institutional register honoured, the individual held privately.

The Yum List’s trendy SoHo […] New York and very trendy framing captures the contemporary pulse the room was tuned to. Free Malaysia Today’s ritual framing captures the discipline that ran beneath the contemporary register. Both were true at once — and Omotenashi held them together.

MeatMore is a trendy SoHo […] New York and very trendy.

The Yum List · October 2023

The Catalogue and the Dual Register

MeatMore’s editorial register was deliberately dual — both fine dining and happy food. The catalogue held two registers in parallel, neither subordinate to the other.

The premium register. Five sourcing origins carried the kitchen’s premium catalogue: Australian Wagyu (Dry-Aged Striploin; Pure Blood Wagyu Ribeye MB9+); Japanese Wagyu (A5 multi-cut experiences; Wagyu Beef Yee Sang); Japanese Miyazaki and Omi Wagyu (select cuts curated by the chef); Australian Angus (Black Angus Ribeye MB5; Sirloin; Tomahawk); and USDA Beef (30-day Dry-Aged T-bone and Ribeye). Floor-service signatures included Rump, Sirloin, Tenderloin, Boneless Rib Eye, T-bone, and Flat Iron — grilled over charcoal to a crust held against a medium-rare centre.

The comfort register. Alongside the premium catalogue, the kitchen ran an elevated-comfort programme — high-grade beef burgers; Mash with Gravy as a quiet KFC homage; Macaroni Cheese; the Mamak Tail Bone Broth (a Sup Tulang-style refinement using wagyu oxtail, where European fine-dining technique met Malaysian street-food register at the premium end). The Beef Tartare, made exclusively with wagyu tenderloin and served with quail egg and farm herbs, sat between the two registers — fine-dining technique on a comfort-food register’s plate.

Seasonal programmes punctuated the calendar. Pink Valentine carried a heart-shaped 400g Beef Ribeye with triple-cooked chips and champagne. Chinese New Year introduced Wagyu Beef Yee Sang and a 600g succulent Roast Beef add-on. The seasonal register honoured the cultural calendar that the wider Malaysian dining audience kept.

The sourcing depended on a curated network of premium import partners — direct-from-farm and purveyor relationships that select the chef of choice globally where stock is limited. The partners are honoured privately, not on the public record. The discretion is, again, part of the discipline.

The Mortlach Room — The Dedicated Single-Malt Salon

Within MeatMore, the Mortlach Room functioned as the dedicated single-malt-and-meat pairing salon — the partnership with Mortlach (Diageo) that placed the Beast of Dufftown at the centre of the chef’s whisky portfolio. Malaysia’s first Mortlach dining room, launched on 29 August 2023 with seating for up to twelve guests. The Room’s architecture rested on three pillars.

The pairing programme. Co-curated by Chef James Won and the maison, the programme launched with Mortlach 12 Year Old as the resident expression — anchored by the Room’s signature dish, the Mortlach New York Strip (USDA Prime Sirloin, 35-day dry-aged, paired with Mortlach 12 Year Old). Limited-edition expressions followed at higher reserve register — most notably the Mortlach 30 Years, 2024 Special Release — selected jointly to amplify the Room’s reserve register. The pairing protocol placed the malt at the centre of the plate, not beside it.

Cut exclusivity. Governed by patience rather than a fixed catalogue. The Room received cuts based on farm availability and animal quality during a particular season, and the cuts were honoured with the protocol they asked for. The reserve register sat on quality-and-availability discipline — receive what the season offers; honour it with the protocol it asks for — rather than a pre-set menu the partners were asked to fill.

Partnership as pedagogy. Beyond pairing and exclusivity, the Mortlach partnership operated as instruction. The maison’s distinctive 2.81-times distillation regime, and the patience-and-control discipline beneath it, was the conceptual framework Chef James applied to the kitchen’s ageing programme. The Mortlach Room was the closest the kitchen had come, in twelve years of restaurant work, to building a room around a single discipline transmitted from outside it.

It is the third room-within-a-restaurant in the Restaurant Legacy lineage — joining the Krug Chef’s Table at Enfin (April 2016) and the Hennessy Salon at Enfin (November 2016 onwards). Across the three rooms, the editorial discipline is consistent: a single maison, a single discipline, a private salon within a public room. The Mortlach Room was the most architecturally precise of the three — built around a working ageing programme that translated the malt’s distillation discipline into the kitchen’s own.

The Dedicated Ager — Programme Architecture

At the operational centre of the Mortlach Room stood a dedicated dry-ageing cabinet — a single-zone counter unit by Precision (UK), fitted into custom cabinetry — that held the kitchen’s structured ageing programme across the chapter’s life. The cabinet ran a 15 / 35 / 90-day ladder: fifteen days for floor-service standard; thirty-five days for the kitchen’s signature window; ninety days for the reserve register that anchored the Room.

The cabinet held three ageing programmes in parallel — Whiskey, Butter, and Kombu — each tuned to a different culinary register. The Whiskey programme honoured the Mortlach Room’s signature pairing. The Butter programme carried the European-craft register. The Kombu programme connected MeatMore to the yōshoku dialogue that Shin’Labo would carry across the same years. The protocols beneath the three programmes are held as proprietary craft, not for public surfacing. The discipline is the chapter’s; the technique is the kitchen’s.

Beyond the ageing programmes, barrel wood from the maison was made available for smoking — a quiet circularity by which Mortlach’s terroir, having shaped the spirit, returned to shape the meat. Three programmes within the cabinet; one wood programme over the fire. Four registers, one ager, one disciplined argument.

The Discipline of Ageing — Pedagogy and Material

The thesis the Mortlach Room argued — and that MeatMore’s wider format honoured — was that ageing is a structural discipline rather than a finishing flourish. Mortlach’s distinctive 2.81-times distillation regime produces the umami that distinguishes the maison from every other Speyside house; the dedicated ager at MeatMore treated meat with the same patience that Mortlach treats spirit. Long, considered, undisturbed.

The argument lands at three registers, each carrying the next.

As philosophy — the discipline of ageing is structural, not finishing. Patience is the technique.

As pedagogy — Mortlach’s 2.81-times distillation discipline was the conceptual framework the kitchen applied to meat. The maison taught the kitchen how to wait; the kitchen translated that lesson into protein.

As material — the barrel wood made available for smoking was the pedagogy made physical. Wood that had held the spirit returned to shape the meat. Knowledge transferred is one register; material transferred is another. Both were present in the Room.

It is one of the most architectural arguments in the entire Restaurant Legacy cornerstone. The thesis was specific: the kitchen could carry meat at a register few Malaysian restaurants had attempted, because the maison had taught the kitchen how to wait — and lent the kitchen its wood to prove it.

The Closure (2024)

MeatMore closed in 2024. The dedicated Mortlach Room and the wider steakhouse format passed into historical record. The closure was the second of the three restaurants to close in the wider 2025-pivot window — preceding Shin’Labo’s 2025 closure by one year and following Enfin (Menara Hap Seng) and Bouchon Enfin in the broader arc of restaurants the kitchen has chosen to close.

What endures from MeatMore is the discipline-of-ageing thesis and the Mortlach Room’s editorial precedent. The room is gone. The thesis travels.