DC Restaurant

We had dinner at DC Restaurant yesterday, and I would like to give special recognition to Nawaz for his outstanding service. He was attentive throughout the evening and went above and beyond by helping my wife and me take photos. He even guided us with the best angles, making us feel like we were having a professional photoshoot. To top it off, he personally walked us to the entrance when we left. While the food didn’t quite meet our expectations, the service was exceptional and truly made the experience memorable. Highly recommended for the hospitality. Thank you, Nawaz!

Wonderful service, excellent meal, Quail Andre Malraux is truly star of the night

There was a fish bone in my food. For a Michelin-starred restaurant, that’s a drawback. And the taste of the food was also not spectacular, just average, and some were too salty

I had high expectations for DC Restaurant given its Michelin star reputation, but unfortunately the overall experience fell short. The service was genuinely excellent, love every bit of it. The staff were warm, attentive, and professional throughout the evening. However, the food was underwhelming. Most dishes were very pretty & Instagrammable but mediocre, as some were too salty, some came with bitter aftertaste, and most dishes lacking of the “wow” factor. The biggest disappointment was my main course. The lamb had a very strong gamey smell and taste, which is unpleasant and made it difficult to even swallow. I cut half for my guest to try, and I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the other half small piece. It certainly wasn’t what I expected from a Michelin-starred restaurant. My guest opted for the wine pairing, but the dessert was initially served with the wrong wine pairing, which was surprising for a restaurant of this calibre. There are also a couple of details I hope the restaurant will pay more attention to. When presenting and explaining each dish, it would be more hygienic if the servers stood a little further away from the food, as speaking directly over the plates can cause saliva droplets to reach the food. Also, in a fine dining environment, attention to personal grooming is important, and I noticed noticeable body odour from one of the service staff. Overall, while the hospitality was commendable, the food did not justify the premium price or Michelin reputation. First.. and most probably last.

7 for 7 KL, Episode 5: Echo, Encore: An Afternoon of Quiet Spectacle Episode 5 of my 7 for 7 KL Michelin series brought me to DC Restaurant by Darren Chin, a one-star modern French kitchen quietly rooted in Malaysian terroir. The personal touches started before the first course even arrived — a menu card printed with my name, waiting on a beautifully lit table. Bread service set the tone: a flaky croissant that never lost its crunch, and a warm, comforting multigrain, both paired with a caviar butter plated to look like a soft-boiled egg. Then came an amuse bouche worth lingering over — a warm ginger shrub poured ceremonially from a sake-style carafe, alongside a quartet of bites running from briny (anchovy on herbed bread) to playful (tuna, wasabi, ice cream, crunchy seaweed) to rich (foie gras, melon, hazelnut) to bright (yuzu). Four distinct moods before the printed menu had technically even begun. Then, "Echo of the Sea" — sea urchin, scallop, shrimp, and a burst of roe, dressed in a delicate sauce and served, fittingly, in a sea-urchin-shaped bowl. A cold, firm noodle held everything together, real wasabi added clean heat, and the shrimp turned up unexpectedly soft and buttery. The flavor was good enough that I scraped the sauce straight off the shell-shaped bowl — no decorum left by the end. Next, Ofunato Bay scallops in a lacto-fermented kohlrabi sauce and saffron sabayon, with kohlrabi spaghetti and watercress purée. Quieter than the urchin dish, but just as accomplished — the scallop smooth and buttery, the sauce wrapping it in warmth, the whole plate gentle without ever feeling shy. The kohlrabi reappeared a third time in the main: Quail "André Malraux," DC's interpretation — the bird split and stuffed with bamboo shoot mousseline, foie gras seared and sandwiched at its center, dots of kohlrabi, carrot, and rosella scattered through a deep, aged tangerine jus. This was, without question, the meal's peak — crisp skin, tender meat, and a sauce that did all the work of binding it together. Dish number one of the day, no real competition. The drinks deserve their own mention. DC's non-alcoholic "Temperance" pairing was a genuine highlight — particularly a lychee, orange, lemon, rosella, and egg-white pour served with the quail, foamed like a proper cocktail. I scraped the foam off the glass at the end. Across every Michelin restaurant on this journey so far, this was the best pairing of the lot. Dessert eased things down gently: a Gariguette strawberry sorbet with none of the sharp acidity I usually expect from sorbet, followed by "Jade Blossom" — bird's nest from Slim River, chrysanthemum, and Shingo pear, finished with palm sugar streaked on by dropper in a pattern that genuinely looked like clouds drifting across a pale sky. The bird's nest had the same soft, comforting texture as seviya kheer, vermicelli cooked slow in warm milk — an unexpected but very true comparison. Small details added up across the whole meal: choosing my own Laguiole knife from a presented box, that name on the menu card, and — when I mentioned a sore throat near the end — the team thoughtfully brought back the warm ginger shrub from the very first course in place of the usual tea or coffee. A small gesture, but the kind that tells you the floor is paying attention to the person at the table, not just the courses leaving the kitchen. DC Restaurant earns its star through quiet, deliberate craft — a kohlrabi motif running through three separate courses, real wasabi where most places cut corners, and a kitchen unafraid to let Malaysian ingredients carry as much weight as French technique. A spectacular solo lunch, and easily one of the most memorable stops on this Michelin journey so far.