Upfront: excellent and innovative degustation menu. Very interesting use of local product to prepare western-styled tastes. Our party enjoyed the 17 course menu and were not left hungry.Problems:1) Communication - emails not replied, phone frequently not answered. Nobody enquired about food requirement (eg. one person preferred well cooked meat - received goat tartare and rare goat medallion and didn’t eat it).2) Wine list - they were “making a new list” and had “problems with suppliers”, so literally 80% of the list was unavailable. Either warn customers to bring their own wine (and reduce the corkage from usual RM75/bottle) or print a new, short list. Presenting a list of 60 wines with only 10 wines available is not good form. Also no wine pairing offered, which is odd for such an upmarket menu.3) Location - currently in Shah Alam university campus, set to change in September. But from KLCC, took us 2 hours in peak traffic: we arrived an hour late. Return at midnight took only 30 mins. Maybe warn tourists on your website.4) International levels of hospitality - the staff attention was excellent and attentive, but restaurants at this level in Singapore and Sydney would have a far different welcome. As half our party arrived 15 mins before the rest, we were asked to sit at the bar seating area. The restaurant was half full and staff were not busy - but we were not offered pre-dinner drinks at all (even water) and told that snacks/bread couldn’t be served until everyone seated at table. The feeling of Malaysian hospitality was lacking until we sat at the table.5) Only one toilet, clean but with an unstable toilet seat.6) Oddly they needed to copy our credit card numbers even after payment approval on the bank machine. “Must copy on to our system, sir” - a quirk I’ve noticed in many Malaysian hotels/restaurants, which surely puts credit details at risk on minimally secured computers.Overall, we enjoyed the food and innovative sense of theatre in presentation. Their cooking techniques were excellent (eg. beautiful pastry, tempered chocolate and perfect roasting). Hopefully, by the time Dewakan moves to KL City, international class processes will have polished up the experience to become a true member of Asia’s Best 50.
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