Le Petit Chef Kuala Lumpur Review: What We Liked About This Gimmick for Kids

Our latest First Friday Feast took us to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we tried out a restaurant we wanted to try for a while: Le Petit Chef.

Kids posing outside Le Petit Chef Kuala Lumpur

First Friday Feast is a monthly series debuting on the first Friday of each month and elaborates on a recent dining experience. For avoidance of doubt, this post was in no way sponsored by the restaurant.

We’ve been trying to have a date night each month this year (and post about it on the first Friday of every month). Sometimes we bring the kids along for date night and sometimes they stay at home. But that’s fine by us–the kids are more than welcome to tag along if they want. This time, we decided to have a nice dinner during our trip to Melbourne, Australia.

Arrival to Le Petit Chef (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Official link to Le Petit Chef Kuala Lumpur: https://lepetitchef.com/en/kuala-lumpur

The Le Petit Chef in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is at the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur. We were staying at the Park Hyatt, so needed to take a Grab across town. That might sound inconvenient, but Grab is so cheap in Kuala Lumpur (think ~$2 or $3 USD) that there’s just no need to take public transit.

Once inside the Grand Hyatt, just take the escalators up a level. These are almost hidden off to the side.

And from there, you’ll quickly see the waiting area for Le Petit Chef. Here, you can take some pictures with oversized cooking utensils. After all, the chef is petite!

After a small amount of confusion about whether we needed to check in and no one there to confirm us, a staff member appeared when it was time to escort us to our seats by group.

The menu

The menus here all come rolled up around a cute miniature rolling pin. Spoiler alert: you can take the rolling pins home with you but it seemed many people did not. Since this is a pre-fixe course, the menu just serves as a reminder on what you’ll experience shortly.

The wait staff keeps the orders straight by the little table tags at each seat. “Le Grand Chef” is for the adults.

And the namesake “Le Petit Chef” is for the youngsters.

Below, you’ll find the scans of our menus, with the children’s menu on the first page and the adult menu on the second. In addition to these menus, you’ll also find “Le Master Chef”, which comes with a lobster claw, some caviar, and abalone, and the “Le Grand Végétarien”. All meals come with the same number of courses.

Le_Petit_Chef_KL_Menus Download

Drinks

We didn’t pre-order any drinks through their website when booking. And guess what? We weren’t offered any ability to buy-up and include drinks on the day-of. That seems like a bit of a miss–what if I didn’t want to commit to drinking but change my mind later? I probably could have asked about drinks, but I didn’t care that much.

The bottles of wine are all displayed as you enter, so it seems like they came prepared. I just found it odd that they didn’t try to upsell anyone on it given the effort they made to display it.

The food at Le Petit Chef Kuala Lumpur

First of all, if you don’t know anything about Le Petit Chef, you should know that part of the experience is a dinner and part is a show. The show part of it unfolds mostly on the table in front of you. I’d say to think of it as a movie that’s geared more towards entertaining kids. Adults… you’re not going to be as entertained.

Want to know why Le Petit Chef seems to show up in hotels? They tend to serve the food in conference rooms equipped with projectors that hang from the ceiling. You usually don’t find that in normal restaurant facilities. Sorry to ruin the magic for you.

Each seat will display the same animation, thus enabling everyone to have the best seat in the house.

Some decorations are a bit more elaborate and colorful than others, which looks impressive to younger children.

And with that out of the way, let’s talk about the food.

First course: Tomato Terrine + Bruschetta + Gazpacho

The natural start of the dinner is the appetizer course. After your display, both adults and children will receive the same three items. If you ordered “Le Master Chef”, you’ll get poached lobster claw in the gazpacho.

Tomato terrine is where you take a tomato, peel and seed it, combine it with some gelatin, and chill it. It’s potentially more approachable to children as it smooths out the consistency, but our children didn’t care for it much. At least they tried! It’s cute that they molded the terrine back into the rough shape of a tomato to complete the transformation process.

As for the bruschetta, it comes with some sundried tomatoes and crushed olives on top. I thought the flavors mixed well together, but again the kids weren’t as impressed. That said, remove the toppings and they were mostly fine with it. Sometimes it helps to get kids outside their comfort zone a little when they’re hungry!

The gazpacho was smooth, though I have to admit that I haven’t found a gazpacho that I really enjoy. Personally, I prefer my tomato soups to be warm but this one at least had some nice depth in flavor to it.

One last thing about this tomato terrine–you actually inject flavor into it. The green stem is actually a pipette containing pesto. Combine it with the tomato and, personally, this had the nicest mixture of flavors of the appetizers.

Second course: Seared Hokkaido Scallop (Adult Meal)

And now for the most significantly different part of the meal between the adult and child options. For the adults, you’ll find two scallops atop some squid ink glutinous rice. Both have different flavors to highlight some of the local flavors within Malaysia. On the side, you’ll get some chutney and aioli. The rice is a bit chewy and gives each bite a bit more substance. These aren’t the best scallops I’ve ever had, but they’re not bad either. Overall, think of it as a semi-appetizer. Not big enough to be a full meal, but enough to satisfy you during the presentation.

If you order the Le Grand Chef menu, you’ll also get some caviar included. The Le Grand Végétarien menu swaps out the scallops for potatoes.

Second course: Malaysian Fried Rice (Children’s Meal)

Scallops aren’t usually a dish that children care much for, so you’ll see the scallops replaced by a barramundi skewer. The glutinous rice transforms into fried rice with a sunny side up quail egg. These flavors are more approachable for the kids, though if your children are picky, they might not care for everything on the plate. That said, this dish is what our kids enjoyed the most from the evening. The fried rice is flavorful and the fish skewer is moist and well-prepared.

Third course: Chicken Breast and Leg Roulade

The title of this course is “Childhood Memory”. I certainly don’t have a memory of chicken roulade with truffle. But the imagery leading up to this dish draws upon that feeling a bit more strongly. A roulade is a dish where you wrap the meat (or cake, if it’s sweet) into a spiral-shaped roll. The truffle adds earthy flavors while the spinach foam coats the roulade.

Where this dish draws upon childhood memories is more on the earthy flavors–perhaps when you play outside. That’s the play here, not what you’re actually eating.

Fourth course: Oven-Baked Atlantic Cod Fish

Between the adult and child versions, there’s not too much difference aside from some XO sauce that doesn’t appear on the kid’s fish. Around the plate, you’ll get some very decorative anthropomorphic carrots, avocados, and meringue dancing. It’s festive!

This dish comes with a small amount of Atlantic cod, asparagus, and some carbs with a pipette of XO sauce (for the adults). The container has some sauce to bind the flavors together. The fish is flaky and delicious and the skeleton fish on top adds seasoning if you decide to eat it together. I tend to prefer my asparagus grilled, but I have nothing to complain about with the steamed asparagus here.

If you order the Le Grand Chef menu, you’ll also get abalone with this course. The Le Grand Végétarien menu exchanges the fish for some braised egg tofu.

Fifth course: Raspberry & Chocolate

The final course of the evening is the dessert course, which is mostly the same between the different courses. If you like the thought of cracking into your dessert with a hammer, mixing in what you want, and then enjoying the concoction, this is for you. That said, be cautioned that this is a sweet dessert, perfect if you really like that extra sugar on top. You can withhold adding some sweetness, but it still tasted pretty sweet to start to me.

You get some instructions on how to eat the dessert, in case you need the instructions. Personally, I’d prefer it if they didn’t give the instructions and you just figure it out on your own.

As if that wasn’t enough, staff stopped by to ask if we wanted any chocolate truffles and other bite-sized desserts. If you thought the main dessert was too sweet, oh boy, this somehow tops it.

At the end of it all, the conference room cleared out, and we took home our certificates that congratulated us on becoming chefs.

The overall experience was a bit of a gimmick, but we expected it coming in

Yes, this experience is a gimmick. But did you honestly expect something else?

You’re in a conference room in a major hotel (or on a cruise ship in some cases) and you’re going to dine there. First of all, most elegant dinners generally aren’t hosted at a hotel. That’s not a definitive statement, but the best food in a city usually isn’t at a hotel whose focus is more on satisfying basic needs of its hotel guests.

This is a dinner and a show. And you’ll end up paying for it as though it’s both. We paid a total of 1,432 MYR (~$351 USD) for the evening. The food alone wouldn’t justify the price, but when you combine it with the entire 2-hour experience, it’s passable.

Think of it as an approachable entry into gastronomy for kids. I think that’s the best way that I can describe the food here. Some kids might find it entertaining to see food in ways they’re not used to seeing. Others might complain that the flavors are too exotic. Our children ended up somewhere in the middle–they enjoyed the experience and the evening even if they didn’t enjoy all the food on their plates.

Recommendation: It’s worth a visit for families with younger kids, but otherwise it’s a pass

Who is the target audience for this experience? It’s clear from the cartoonish designs that the experience is intended mostly for younger children.

The culinary experience isn’t going to hold up as well for adults with a more complex palate. Sure, some adults will consider themselves a kid at heart and might find enjoyment through the evening. Perhaps it’s also a more enjoyable experience for some adults if they also pre-order alcohol for the evening.

However, the main target is still families with younger children. If that’s you, it’s worth a visit to one of their locations around the world. Just be sure to choose a location where the food is aligned with things your children might like. Menus do vary by location.

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