“I can’t stay in one spot,” confesses Jenifer Kuah. “It’s the sprite in me.”

While she may not have stayed in one spot, Kuah (54) has been in the restaurant industry for a long time. 

Twenty years ago, she pivoted from her career in law and decided to open a café. That café was Food Foundry: the first of its kind at the time. Readers of a certain age will remember it from Happy Mansion in Section 17, along with another of Kuah’s early businesses, Butter + Beans. 

But her current chapter really started with Sitka, which she co-founded with the chef Christian Recomio in 2014. The two of them have been working together ever since.

“I knew I wanted to do something different. You know, where we prioritise the quality of the food, and originality, and talent. I love what I do, so it's not just a business,” she says. “I truly love hospitality and giving the market something that perhaps they haven’t experienced.”

Sitka at Plaza Batai quickly gained a cult following among foodies, especially for its fried chicken.  Recomio, a chef with Scottish and Mexican roots, had worked extensively overseas (including a stage at Copenhagen’s Noma). At Sitka, he developed inventive, chef-forward dishes with local produce. They went on to open a sister venture, Sitka Studio, upstairs. This was a more elevated concept, with a changing tasting menu by Recomio. 

Both restaurants closed in 2021. Why? Rising rents at Plaza Batai, says Kuah, led them to exit the area. They had also gone through the pressure of Malaysia’s Covid lockdowns. 

When asked why she didn’t reopen Sitka elsewhere, Kuah says, “We wanted to do something new. And I think when we did Sitka, it kind of evolved as well.” Sitka started as a cafe, then became a modern European bistro, and by the end, it served a modern Asian menu.

By 2018, the pair had also opened Alta Cafe, on Jalan Bangkung—a street where Kuah had always wanted to have a café. 

Currently, Kuah and Recomio have three restaurants: Alta Café on Jalan Bangkung, Alta on Jalan Kemuja, and The Studio, directly upstairs from Alta. Each venture has selective opening hours, with The Studio opening on Friday and Saturday evenings only. 

A common thread is evolution. Kuah is led by curiosity. A few years ago, she and Recomio travelled to Italy to learn about pizza making. They had bought a pizza oven, and this led to opening Alta Pizza in 2023.

The reviews were mostly positive. But a combination of ambition, staffing demands, and the market response led them to move on.

This year, the restaurant has been rebranded as Alta, with a new menu, at the same location. It’s a cosy yet contemporary spot, in a narrow shophouse with an open kitchen and an upbeat playlist. The pizza oven is still in use, for making flatbreads among other dishes.

Kuah sets the bar very high for their food, and applies the same discernment elsewhere. “There’s no compromise for us”, she says. She takes inspiration from their network of international friends in the industry.  “It’s very important to us that our restaurants can exist anywhere in the world.”

Among restaurants she loves, she mentions a few favourites: Arpège in Paris, Noble Rot and St. JOHN in London, Tapas 24 in Barcelona. 

Closer to home, Alexis in Bangsar is one that she looks up to. “Alexis is the cafe I’d want to eat in until I die.”

The dinner menu at Alta is small, but every dish is thoughtfully developed. For a dish of confit potato pavé, the potato is thinly sliced, layered, compressed and fried into crispy, flaky batons, with whipped cod roe on the side. 

Then there’s a dish of spaghetti with mud crab and calabrian chilli butter. The fine tangle of spaghetti is handmade in-house, topped with a briny crab that works perfectly with a mellow, zesty kick of chilli. Kuah mentions that many of their condiments are made in-house too.

At Alta Café, the Alta burger has gained a following for being one of the city’s best. Here at Alta, there’s another incarnation: a dry aged burger sandwiched with compté cheese, and bone marrow caramelised onion. All their beef patties are made from selected cuts of meat and ground—yes, you guessed it—in-house. 

Kuah takes pride in their standards, though she also expresses frustration: broadly, people hear “Italian” and still expect the same three pastas as twenty years ago, she says.

“I'm in no way saying, ‘What people like is wrong.’ I'm just saying that I wish there were more people who want to move it forward.” 

After two decades in the industry, however, she appreciates that some things are easier now than they used to be. She recalls trying to promote Food Foundry back in 2006.

“We'd go around Section 17 and knock on offices, going, ‘Hi, we’re around the corner, here’s some food.’ I don’t even know how I managed to do all that.”

Today, on the other hand, it’s easier to reach people through social media and digital advertising. “The connection is easier than before.”

“Even with changing it from Alta Pizza to Alta, we could just do it. We have the flexibility and ability to control the narrative.” 

I ask her about a hard lesson she’s learned. “Pick the right partner, as in life,” she says.

She and Recomio share the same standards, which she says is crucial. “Make sure you’re growing in the same direction.”

Hiring also remains a consistent challenge. However, Kuah has high praise for her team and in particular, Alta’s head chef, Allen Lim, who joined them in 2020.

“You need to know enough failures. You need to know how to fail. It’s not a very Asian thing.”

So how should aspiring restaurateurs build resilience? “You need to know enough failures. You need to know how to fail. It’s not a very Asian thing.”

“It’s not that I’ve made it, it’s that I’ve done so many things,” she reflects. “Having things go wrong is essential.”

She urges people to master “the fundamentals” first, getting the cooking and hospitality right. “It’s also important to recognise if you’re good at something or not.”

Her plans for the future are modest, but far from easy. “I want to work with my team. Become better together, build skills together, and be a hospitality group to be reckoned with. I have a team who want to be good, who want to be better.” 

“We have no plan to expand. Zero. If the three restaurants are running at a good state, we will be happy.”