Gua group aims to bring legacy restaurants from small-towns in Malaysia to KL

The Star

2 days ago

It is 11am at Kedai Kopi Xiong Wor in Taman Tun Dr Ismail in Kuala Lumpur and tables are heaving with customers. By 12pm, every single available table is taken up and the eatery's signature curry noodles are precariously close to being sold out – as is often the case.
What is interesting is that this scenario is a replication of what usually happens on a daily basis in the original outlet in Kuantan, named Teng Haw Coffee Shop (its name in Hainanese). Teng Haw was established in 1966 and is named after the patriarch of the family who first started it 59 years ago.
For many Klang Valley denizens who call Kuantan their hometown, the curry noodles at Teng Haw are a must-have on a trip back home and consequently, one of the dishes they miss the most when they're back in Kuala Lumpur.
Thankfully a few months ago, a fledgling restaurant group called Gua Group successfully convinced Jayden Ong, the fourth-generation owner of the restaurant, to bring the brand to Kuala Lumpur, where it now sits under the banner of Kedai Kopi Xiong Wor, its Cantonese name.
What is even more interesting is that Gua Group's founders – Danial Yik, his sister Mimi Yik and brother-in-law Keanu Subba – are entirely focused on identifying and bringing heritage restaurants scattered throughout the country to the capital city.
From left: Keanu, Mimi and Danial are on a mission to preserve heritage restaurants and recipes by providing an opportunity for younger-generation owners to open branches in KL. — SAMUEL ONG/The Star
'I had this thought of 'Isn't it a bit strange that you always have to tell your friend to go to Penang for the best char kuey teow or to Ipoh for chicken rice'?
'So the three of us had a discussion, and we thought, why don't we bring these heritage brands that are tried and tested and have a legacy to the Klang Valley? People love these foods, so why not have the same experience in KL?' says Danial.
From those tenuous beginnings rose the kernel of an idea for Gua Group's core mission of building a repertoire of legacy restaurants in the Klang Valley.
Driving tradition forward
While Danial, Mimi and Keanu are relatively new to the F&B industry, they are not entirely untested, having established a healthy food eatery called Staple Eats just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The three come from diverse backgrounds – Danial studied architecture at the University of Melbourne but left before completing his degree, while Mimi is a political science major. Her husband, Keanu, meanwhile, is a former champion Malaysian mixed martial artist.
It was always Mimi's dream to open a restaurant, so Staple Eats became the family's first F&B venture. When the restaurant closed after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, the trio realised that the dishes that resonated most with Malaysians were Malaysian food, especially traditional foods that are still made the old-fashioned way.
'A lot of these legacy foods are disappearing. We wanted to keep the legacy alive. I wouldn't say we are like custodians – I don't want to be too presumptuous but I would say that we want to have a hand in preserving local favourites that would be lost to time otherwise,' says Danial.
Danial (right) says it was easy to convince Ong to come onboard, and the success of Xiong Wor has shown him that there is a gap in the market for heritage restaurants in KL. — SAMUEL ONG/The Star
Part of this impetus was also prompted by the number of heritage restaurants dying out as younger generations are either not motivated to continue the business or have been encouraged by their parents to pursue other less physically laborious paths.
'There is a need for preservation of these dishes and there is a gap in the market to draw more of these heritage restaurants to KL and potentially expand their presence. Like with Jayden, for example, he was actually a mechanic before this as his family wasn't keen on him being in the business.
'So if he decided that he didn't want to continue making the curry mee, we won't be able to enjoy it anymore – nearly 60 years of culinary legacy would end with him. And you find this more and more with like famous chicken rice shops in Ipoh suddenly closing because the owner's son or daughter went overseas,' says Danial.
Maiden venture
Having discovered their true calling, Gua Group's founders wasted little time in recruiting their first heritage restaurant, setting their sights on a hometown favourite that they grew up with.
'Kuantan is my father's hometown, so I've been going to Teng Haw since I was a toddler. Every trip to Kuantan, we always woke up early to go there.
'It was part of the experience, you know. It was not just about going and eating the food – you also had to wait in line and hope it wasn't sold out,' says Danial.
Xiong Wor's curry mee boasts nearly 60 years of fine-tuning and is the key reason Gua Group wanted to bring the heritage restaurant to KL.
The process of getting Ong on board was relatively simple and fuss-free. 'Our negotiation was very simple. I said, 'Do you want to open your shop in KL?' He said, 'Yes'.'
Once Ong agreed, everything else fell into place relatively quickly. Danial's father believed in his children's vision and invested in the restaurant group and having learnt their lessons with their first F&B venture, it took Danial and his team only three months to put together Kedai Kopi Xiong Wor.
'We were working with Jayden, who is the same age as us and knows his job very well and we had operated kitchens before, so we were very quick to identify what we needed,' says Danial.
But turning an age-old restaurant in Kuantan into a city staple was not without its challenges. Even though everything came together quickly, the hurdles and obstacles were presented in different packages.
'The translation from a kopitiam to a restaurant with a different set of cleanliness standards and preparation standards was one of the challenges we faced.
'We wanted to make the restaurant more modern but we also wanted it to be safe and clean, because we find that a lot of kopitiams have been operating for so long that they don't want to change. But luckily, Jayden has been very open to change,' says Danial.
Since it opened a few months ago, the restaurant has been perpetually packed. — SAMUEL ONG/The Star
Gua Group's business operates on a profit-sharing model. Danial and his team finance the expansion of heritage restaurants like Xiong Wor in KL as well as provide consultancy services. They don't own or buy the recipes from the owners, so the recipes remain with their rightful keepers.
'We don't buy their recipes – they still hold them. What we do is actually empower this new generation of restaurant owners and provide them with a platform or a way for them to see that they can continue with the next generation and preserve these dishes,' explains Danial.
Eyes on the future
Having established their first heritage restaurant in the Klang Valley, Danial now knows that this model is very viable.
'The success of Xiong Wor has enabled us to confidently continue with this mission because now we know that our model does work. And we can use the first restaurant to convince other businesses who want to continue their legacy and heritage that there is a way to make money and beyond that, to continue the traditional format in a sustainable way,' says Danial.
Identifying new heritage restaurants to work with will depend on a few key factors: how good the food is, how passionate the owners are, and the most pertinent part of this equation – is there someone in the younger generation who is hungry for growth and an opportunity like this?
Kaya toast is one of the old-school dishes at Kedai Kopi Xiong Wor. — SAMUEL ONG/The Star
'The next restaurants we are looking at are places in Ipoh and Penang. But for this to work, we need to see that the owners believe in the mission, which is to preserve the legacy and heritage. If they're running a family restaurant just for the sake of doing it, we probably wouldn't choose them.
'We're looking for people who inject love into their recipes and most importantly, we require someone from the restaurant to be very active in continuing the mission,' he says.
To finance the expansion of these heritage Malaysian restaurants, Danial says Gua Group has to grow more organically. Next in their pipeline is a legacy international restaurant, which the group will be establishing in Kuala Lumpur.
'The international branding is more of an expansion effort. So we need to bring in a bit more income generation so that we can focus on financing our actual mission of bringing in more heritage Malaysian restaurants to KL,' says Danial.
As Danial himself is Muslim (his father is Chinese and his mother is Malay), part of his core goal is also to introduce heritage restaurants that are more inclusive and cater to all Malaysians.
'We want to make these restaurants pork-free and alcohol- free because, from a business standpoint, we will miss out on a whole demographic of Malaysians if we don't do this. And the idea is to bring these heritage foods to a wider audience,' says Danial.