The Shin'Kappou counter at Shin'Labo: a long lit timber counter beneath a sculpted ceiling, the open kitchen behind it.
Shin'Labo by James Won
The last room · 1 February 2022 to early 2025

Shin'Labo

by James Won, at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport, Kuala Lumpur.

Shin'Kappou, the counter. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

“In Won's hands, elevated yōshoku has the air of an invitation-only club.”

BURO 24/7 · Shin'Labo review

The last room

James Won in black, standing beside a grey armchair, one hand resting on its back, against a dark studio wall.
January 2022, a month before Shin'Labo opened. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

Shin’Labo was the last restaurant I built, and the one I built with everything I had learnt. Twelve years of fine dining went into it: the French kitchen, the Japanese counter, the Krug table, the ageing cabinet and the maisons I had worked with for a decade.

It ran for three years at Lalaport, from 1 February 2022 to early 2025. In that time it won a hat-trick at the HAPA Awards, held Asia’s only Krug Chef’s Table and received two design awards in its first year.

I did not close it because it failed. I closed it at its height, to give my full attention to Sarawak and to the communities whose food became Serumpun. Shin’Labo was the finale. Serumpun is what it made possible.

The Shin'Labo facade at Lalaport by night: a long wall of gold light behind dark vertical slats, the Shin'Labo name glowing beside the entrance.

The facade at Lalaport, lit for the evening. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

The name and the cooking

Shin’Labo, the new laboratory, pairs Shin (true, new, heart) with Labo, a word that reads as “laboratory” in both French and Japanese. The cooking started from yōshoku and took it further, with French haute technique, luxury ingredients and Malaysian terroir. Our operating philosophy was Beneficial and Sustainable Gastronomy: the chef as a steward, and never merely an interpreter of the menu.

From the opening in 2022 the press read the room the way we meant it. FirstClasse’s line is the one I keep:

A culinary expression in both French and Japanese.

FirstClasse · 2022

The cooking was never pure yōshoku. Traditional yōshoku (tonkatsu, omurice, hambāgu, korokke, Japanese curry) is the style Japan built in the late nineteenth century by reworking Western food through a Japanese lens for the everyday table. Shin’Labo started from that heritage and pushed it on. The conversation between Japan and the West stayed the same, but we cooked it with French haute technique, Caspian caviar, dry-aged duck, seasonal truffle and Krug Champagne pairings. The room brought yōshoku up to fine-dining standard.

The location at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL mattered. Travel & Leisure Asia’s coverage of the wider Mitsui retail concept (local produce, Malaysian indigenous ingredients, a Japanese retail philosophy) set Shin’Labo inside the same Japanese-Malaysian conversation the food was already having on the plate. The building said what the cooking said.

Three rooms

We divided the 2,700-square-foot space at Lalaport BBCC into three distinct dining areas, each at a different level of intimacy.

Shin'Kappou: the long timber counter under the sculpted ceiling, set for service.
The counter, where the cooking was the show. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

Shin’Kappou

The main dining room. Guests watched me prepare multi-course menus at the counter using traditional kappou techniques: cutting, boiling, stewing, frying. The format was deliberately Japanese. The cooking was the show.

The Krug Chef's Table at Shin'Labo: a long dining table in a red-walled private room.
Ryoutei Shin'Labo, the Krug room. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

The Krug Chef’s Table, Ryoutei Shin’Labo

One of the few in the world, and the only one in Asia. The room hosted exclusive Krug Champagne pairings and my ongoing Ambassade work. Robb Report Malaysia placed it in the Japanese ryoutei (料亭) tradition of high-end private dining.

Maison du Caviar Caspienne: deep blue velvet armchairs and low tables in a warm-lit lounge.
The caviar bar and lounge. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

Maison du Caviar Caspienne

The caviar bar and lounge, built around top-tier sturgeon caviar sourced directly from heritage sites in the Caspian Sea.

The design: Swofinty, MUSE Gold and MIID Silver

I commissioned Swofinty, a local design firm, to turn the way we cooked into a working dining room. Their answer was a bold, minimal facade and a laboratory-inspired interior: sculptural lighting, lab cabinets, and the same restraint the kitchen was practising on the plate. The room went on to win international design recognition.

In 2022, the room received:

  • MUSE Design Awards, Gold (2022), interior design. The international award recognised how Swofinty turned a transcendental dining concept into a physical room.
  • MIID REKA Awards, Silver (2022), Food & Beverage category. This is the top award of the Malaysian Institute of Interior Designers, and it recognised Swofinty for translating my transcendental dining brief into space.

Two design awards in the opening year, and a HAPA hat-trick to follow in May 2023. Everything we cooked afterwards stood on the discipline the architecture had already set.

The Shin'Labo facade at night: tall glass and dark slatted screens.
The facade, bold and minimal.
The Shin Lounge: blue velvet armchairs under warm light.
The Shin Lounge.
The Shin Lounge from another angle, with the bar beyond.
The lounge, looking towards the bar.
The Shin'Kappou counter seen from its end, the kitchen behind.
Shin'Kappou from the end of the counter.
The counter beside the bamboo-lined windows.
The counter by the bamboo windows.

Photographs: Bonnie Yap.

The Shin'Labo experience: eighteen seconds inside the room.

The menu

Three dishes carried Shin’Labo through its years, and one plate stood above them.

The Shin'Labo oyster on crushed ice in a white bowl, dressed with fine dice and a yellow flower, on dark moss.

The oyster. Photograph: Klaus Tan, Chuttersnap.

The oyster was the centre of Shin’Labo. More than any other dish, it showed what the restaurant was: Japanese ingredient, French technique and Malaysian terroir meeting at one point on the plate. It came back again and again over the years, the signature nobody needed to announce.

The menu, course by course

  1. Two small glass dishes of amuse-bouche on dark moss.
    01Amuse-bouche
  2. Sashimi on a white plate, on dark moss.
    02Sashimi
  3. Sushi with a flower garnish, on dark moss.
    03Sushi
  4. Sea urchin in a small tin on a piece of driftwood, on burl wood.
    04Sea urchin, raised on driftwood
  5. A prawn course on a white plate, on dark moss.
    05The prawn course
  6. A crisp-skinned fillet in a golden sauce, on burl wood.
    06Crisp-skinned fillet, golden sauce
  7. Binchotan duck à l'orange on a white plate, on dark moss.
    07Binchotan duck à l'orange
  8. Lamb on a white plate, on dark moss.
    08Lamb
  9. Three slices of seared beef with small garnishes.
    09Seared beef, in three slices
  10. Truffle Hayashi Rice in a glass bowl, on dark moss.
    10Truffle Hayashi Rice
  11. Two pre-desserts on white plates, on dark moss.
    11Pre-dessert
  12. A dessert in a glass bowl, on dark moss.
    12Dessert

Photographs by Bonnie Yap, except courses 04, 06 and 09 by Klaus Tan, Chuttersnap.

Binchotan Duck à l’Orange. Duck dry-aged in-house and seared over binchotan charcoal: a contemporary French dish with Modernist techniques, retold in the language of the Japanese kitchen.

Truffle Hayashi Rice. The signature comfort dish. Duck, onsen egg and seasonal truffles, plated to honour Japanese home cooking while bringing it up to fine-dining standard.

Bread of the Forest. An artistic appetiser composed to look like the forest floor, and typical of the experimental forms Shin’Labo kept to.

The reviews kept returning to the same three things: the ingredients, the Japanese-French idea and the feel of the room. Tatler Asia’s second visit found “the ingredients are undoubtedly premium […] a tantalising range of sake.” The full list is at the foot of this page.

The ageing library

From the day Shin’Labo opened in 2022, the art and science of ageing protein was at the centre of the work. The ageing library was the work itself, in slow form, and never an add-on. Over the three years it ran as one continuous programme: protein aged at temperature, against time and against what the season offered, all to a yōshoku standard.

A cook torches prawns on a rack beside the grill in the Shin'Labo kitchen.
Fire at the pass, the night Mortlach launched, September 2022. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

The discipline travelled. When I opened MeatMore in October 2023 and built the Mortlach Room inside it, I did not invent a new ageing programme for that room. It was the Shin’Labo programme, by then a year and a half old, adapted for meat. Whisky, butter and kombu: three programmes in one cabinet at MeatMore, all built on what Shin’Labo had been laying down since opening day.

James Won beside the glass-fronted ageing cabinet.
The cabinet: protein, time and patient attention.
Fish ageing in the cabinet.
Fish, ageing.
Two cooks at work beside the ageing cabinet.
At the cabinet, September 2022.
Two cuts of beef ageing on a rack.
Beef, ageing.
A fish head and fins hanging in the cabinet.
The whole fish, used whole.
A fish head in the cabinet, close.
Close, in the cabinet.
Fish hanging in the ageing cabinet.
February 2022, the first weeks.
Meat and poultry hanging in the cabinet.
Meat and poultry, side by side.
Duck and poultry hanging in the cabinet.
Duck, for the binchotan.

Photographs: Bonnie Yap and the Shin'Labo kitchen.

The Krug Chef’s Table

Inside Shin’Labo, the Krug Chef’s Table was our resident Champagne room: a salon where I staged my ongoing Krug Ambassade work.

The Krug Chef’s Table moved from Enfin (Menara Hap Seng) to Shin’Labo in February 2022, which made Shin’Labo, under the maison’s brand standard, home to Asia’s only Krug Chef’s Table. We poured Krug Grande Cuvée and Krug Rosé 26ème Édition for the Ambassade work and used the Pininfarina × Mepra × Chef James Won special edition exclusively. The Krug Music Pairing tradition carried on from where it began, at Enfin’s Krug Chef’s Table in April 2016.

The red-walled Krug room, the table set.
Ryoutei Shin'Labo, set for the evening.
The table setting with Pininfarina × Mepra flatware.
The Pininfarina × Mepra × James Won setting.
The Krug room table from another angle.
The table, from the end of the room.
The Krug room with its concrete wall and red panels.
The room as it received its guests.
James Won serving guests at the Krug Ambassade dinner.
The Krug Ambassade dinner, 14 June 2023.
James Won standing at the table with a bottle of Krug, mid-service.
At the table, 14 June 2023.
The Krug salon, the long table under soft light.
The salon.
The booth corner of the Krug room.
The Krug Music Pairing corner, a tradition from Enfin in April 2016.

Photographs: Bonnie Yap.

The maisons at Shin’Labo

Much of my brand work happened at Shin’Labo while it was open.

James Won in whites and a guest at the Shin'Labo counter, opening a bottle of The Macallan.
The Macallan at the counter. Photograph: All Is Amazing.

The Macallan. The formal Dining Experience programme began on 15 February 2022 and ran for twenty-four months, to 14 February 2024, in three formats: the Whisky Dining Experience, a Cocktail Activation, and a Premium Spirit Activation across all three rooms. The limited-edition flagship was The Harmony Collection Rich Cacao, with Jordi Roca and Polly Logan, with an allocation of 94 bottles to Shin’Labo. At the 007 James Bond 60th Anniversary launch, Shin’Labo was named one of six authorised establishments in KL.

Mortlach. The launch (September 2022), before the dedicated Mortlach Room moved to MeatMore (29 August 2023 to 2024).

The Balvenie. The PinPalate pairing dinners, covered by Pin Prestige in Chinese, with Caribbean Cask, Port Wood and aged-statement releases (April to May 2022).

Glenfiddich. The Grand Yozakura 29-Year-Old activation, where the maison’s Japan-finished Speyside whisky met Shin’Labo’s Japanese-French cooking.

Louis XIII. The 2022 activation that put T’lur Malaysian caviar at the centre of a global Louis XIII pairing for the first time. The campaign, Les Voyages du Caviar, ran from April to June 2022.

BMW. The electrified menu designed for the BMW i7 launch.

Mepra. Used exclusively at Shin’Labo for as long as it was open. No other restaurant in Malaysia served on the maison’s flatware.

Louis XIII celebrates at Shin'Labo
Mortlach with Chef James Won at Shin'Labo
Shin'Labo × BMW i7: the experience
The experience, with Krug
The experience, with The Macallan
The experience, with Mortlach
The experience, with Louis XIII

Films by Metta Studio.

Now and then I took the room elsewhere. The best documented night is the Anantara Desaru pop-up of 1 December 2022, a one-night residency at Sea. Fire. Salt Restaurant in Anantara Desaru Coast Resort & Villas, on the east coast of Johor. I plated a six-course Japanese-French menu built around the senses for that single evening, with the same discipline and restraint, in a room by the sea that was not mine for the night.

Honours and the brigade

In May 2023 Shin’Labo won three awards at the Hospitality Asia Platinum Awards 2023-24: Best Restaurant of the Year and Best Service Excellence for the restaurant, and the Special Recognition Culinary Achievement Award for me. The Vibes reported it on 12 May 2023 and quoted what I said that night:

A great brand is as good as its team.

James Won · The Vibes, 12 May 2023

A team earned the hat-trick. The Shin’Labo brigade worked across the kappou counter, the French haute kitchen, the caviar bar and the Krug Chef’s Table. Each room had its own discipline, and each was run by people I trusted to keep to the standard it asked for.

The Shin'Labo team gathered behind the counter beneath the Shin'Labo sign.
The team.
Black-and-white photograph of cooks at work along the counter.
At the counter, service in progress.
A cook plating at the counter.
Plating at the pass.
Hands arranging herbs and greens in trays.
Greens for the evening.
A cook at work in the open kitchen.
The open kitchen.

Photographs: Bonnie Yap.

The Cameron walk, before first service

Before the first service, the brigade walked the soil. Every member of the opening team (cooks, servers, sommelier) had to visit Uncle Leong’s biodynamic farm in Cameron Highlands before taking their place in the room at Lalaport. Biodynamic farming keeps the produce inside a closed loop: the soil is restored season after season, and planting follows the calendar of the land. To know the food, the team had to know the ground. It was a rite of formation, and never meant as a tour. Chef-steward, the phrase we used, meant asking the whole room to remember where the produce came from. You remember a place best by having stood in it.

The Krug Chef's Table at Shin'Labo, the red room lit and set, the long table waiting for its guests.

Ryoutei Shin'Labo, set for the evening. Photograph: Bonnie Yap.

The finale

Shin’Labo closed in early 2025. It was part of a deliberate move away from running restaurants and towards conservation and culinary diplomacy. That move took shape the same year, when the Serumpun Sarawak movement made its first international appearance, at Seaside Studio CASO in Osaka.

The closure was a turning point for me. The discipline came with me into a larger room: first the Mulu rainforest, then the wider state of Sarawak, and then the Sarawak Cultural Village succession of April 2026.

The Shin'Labo showreel.
The Peak Series
The HAPA hat-trick, 2023
The Macallan and the James Bond 60th
BMW i7 × Shin'Labo

Every Shin’Labo film, more than thirty in all, is on record in the Media Centre.

Questions answered

Is Shin'Labo by James Won still open?

No. Shin'Labo by James Won closed in early 2025.

What kind of food did Shin'Labo by James Won serve?

Shin'Labo started from yōshoku, the style Japan built in the late nineteenth century by reworking Western food for the everyday table, and brought it up to fine-dining standard with French haute technique. The signatures were Bread of the Forest, Binchotan Duck à l'Orange and Truffle Hayashi Rice, and the most iconic dish was the Shin'Labo oyster.

What was the Krug Chef's Table at Shin'Labo by James Won?

The Krug Chef's Table at Shin'Labo was the salon where I staged my ongoing Krug Ambassade work, and under the maison's brand standard it was Asia's only Krug Chef's Table. Robb Report Malaysia called it Ryoutei Shin'Labo, after the Japanese tradition of high-end private dining.

What awards did Shin'Labo by James Won receive?

In 2022 the room received a MUSE Design Awards Gold and a MIID REKA Awards Silver, both recognising the design firm Swofinty. Shin'Labo also won a hat-trick at the HAPA Awards in May 2023.

Selected Press

Full archive →
  • Tatler Asia Chef James Won opens new restaurant Shin'Labo By Aaron Pereira · launch coverage 1 June 2022
  • FirstClasse Shin'Labo by James Won 20 April 2022
  • Lifestyle Asia (KL) Shin'Labo marries Japanese with French cuisine, through local ingredients 14 April 2022
  • Robb Report Malaysia Shin'Labo Explores Japanese Yoshoku Cuisine With French Techniques and Malaysian Ingredients 23 April 2022
  • Prestige Online (Malaysia) Review — Shin'Labo by James Won — Japanese-French Cuisine 21 April 2022
More press (10)
  • The Peak (Malaysia) Shin'Labo by James Won — On the Cover 25 July 2022
  • Robb Report Malaysia James Won, Krug, Ryoutei Shin'Labo, Champagne Krug Chef's Table at Shin'Labo · the Ryoutei standard 13 September 2022
  • The Vibes Shin'Labo by James Won scoops hat-trick of HAPA Awards 1 November 2022
  • Citta Bella Krug Champagne 与 Shin'Labo by James Won 的香槟之约 1 August 2022 ZH-CN
  • First Classe Louis XIII × Shinlabo Caviar Experience First Louis XIII activation globally to use Malaysian caviar 29 April 2022
  • The Edge Options Louis XIII Celebrates Cognac and Caviar with New Yōshoku-Inspired Shin'Labo Restaurant KL 21 May 2022
  • Pin Prestige PinPalate — Balvenie × Shin'Labo Food Pairing 11 May 2022
  • Loop Me Shin'Labo × Mortlach launch coverage Genesis of the Mortlach Room (later relocated to MeatMore) 1 September 2022
  • Nanyang 割烹料理 现场观礼 / Kappo Cuisine — A Live Witness 3 April 2022 ZH-CN
  • BFM Radio Laboratory for Foods (Open for Business podcast) Audio · broadcast 23 September 2022

Read next

Restaurant Legacy

My fourteen years in restaurants

 Enfin by James Won

The fine-dining flagship before it, at Menara Hap Seng

 MeatMore

The second 2025-pivot-era room: Mortlach Room genesis from Shin'Labo

 Collaborations

Krug: the Krug Chef's Table that moved to Shin'Labo in February 2022

 Collaborations

The Macallan: the 24-month Dining Experience programme

 Collaborations

Louis XIII: Les Voyages du Caviar with T'lur

 Collaborations

Mortlach: the launch that earned the dedicated room

 Serumpun Sarawak

The work after the pivot that Shin'Labo made possible

Restaurant legacy, questions answered →

Three years in Bukit Bintang. The HAPA Awards hat-trick. Asia's only Krug Chef's Table. The Pininfarina special edition. The first Louis XIII pairing with T'lur. The BMW i7 electrified menu. The room knew what it was doing, and when it was time to do something larger.

Search the archive

Try Krug Chef's Table, Mortlach, Locally Sauced, Mérite Agricole, Ryoutei, or Serumpun Osaka.