The Last Dinner of the Year: Our Favourite Restaurants of 2025

COVER OUR FAVOURITE RESTAURANTS OF 2025

2025 did not unfold neatly. It was complex, dynamic, and often in flux, much like the way we live now. Over the many moons, my relationship with dining and writing shifted alongside it. I found myself less interested in novelty for its own sake, and more drawn to meals that felt grounded, generous, and honest. Places that rewarded return visits and tables that invited conversation over performance.

This collection reflects that shift. Every restaurant here is one I spent time with, wrote about, and thought about long after the table cleared and represented how I ate and how I wrote. By now, the writing has grown more reflective, more experience-led, and more comfortable with descriptions. Moving away from chasing moments meant paying closer attention to relationships, with food, with places, and with time. The restaurants here mirror that evolution. They are places I trust, places I would return to, and places I would confidently recommend if choosing where to sit for the last dinner of 2025.

This is not a countdown nor a guide. It is a considered suggestion, shaped by a year of eating, writing, and revisiting. A way to celebrate the turn of the year and being open to what comes next.

Oolam

Urap Pucuk Manis at Oolam, The Five Damansara

Oolam captures something rare: the feeling of home expressed through unfussy, deeply considered Southeast Asian cooking. The experience is refined without being precious, from the warmth of the service to the clarity of the food, offering one of the most accurate expressions of regional hospitality in the city.

What stayed with me most were the handpicked mud crab curry, prepared daily, and the urap pucuk manis, an Indonesian-style herb salad that balanced freshness and flavour. Together, they reflect Oolam’s strength: familiarity elevated through care, not complexity. As Nacre’s most-read Experience of the year, it opens this list by resonance rather than prestige.

Fritz

Homemade bread and salted butter at Sunday Lunch at Fritz, Troika Sky Dining

Fritz remains one of the city’s most thoughtful dining rooms, exemplified by its monthly Sunday lunch, a full silver-service experience with skyline views, generous menus, and a price point that still feels remarkable. It is creativity expressed with discipline, ambition tempered by control.

Rather than a single dish, it was the flow of the lunch that I remember most, from cultured butter and pristine seafood platters to a tableside carvery and dessert cart that closed the afternoon with quiet confidence. Dinner is a more formal affair, and precisely because of that atmosphere, Fritz feels well suited to a last dinner of the year.

Merdeka Grill

Salmon Roasted on Cedar Wood at Merdeka Grill, Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur

Apart from its altitude, Merdeka Grill stands among the most impressive restaurants of the year for its ambition alone. The kitchen’s ability to impart the flavour of flame within an all-electric setup, while integrating locally sourced ingredients, speaks to a team that knows exactly what it wants to achieve.

The cedar-roasted salmon, barely translucent and finished with smoked butter, remains one of those dishes I still think about, a reminder that confidence and precision can justify even the boldest price tags. As a statement restaurant set within the most talked-about hotel of 2025, Merdeka Grill earns its place as a commanding way to close the year at the top of the city.

Nobu Kuala Lumpur

Beetroot Chilean Seabass & Wakamomo at Nobu Kuala Lumpur

2025 marked Nobu Kuala Lumpur’s 10th anniversary, celebrated through a rotating omakase menu that paid homage to the dishes that shaped its decade-long journey. The experience reaffirmed what Nobu has always done well: consistency, polish, and a sense of assurance.

While familiar signatures made their return, it was the unexpected sweetness of wakamomo, unripe Japanese peach, that impressed me the most. In a year defined by change, Nobu represents stability, a legacy pick that closes the year not with novelty, but with confidence built over time.

AIR CCCC

SUN(SET) at AIR CCCC, Singapore

AIR CCCC reframed how we thought about cooking over the course of the year. What sets the experience apart is not complemity or theatricality, but the way time is treated as an active ingredient and not a background process. Fermentation, ageing and waiting are presented as forced that shape flavour with patience and intent.

The meal that began at dusk with homegrown long peppers on honeyed chicken and fermented potatoes transformed into AIR fries, to smoke-kissed fish and chicken entrees alongside heirloom rice simmered in koji water sharpened our understanding of food as something accumulated rather than assembled. It is an experience that lingered not because it announces its presence, but how it subtly altered our perspectives.

Entier French Dining

Tasting menu amuse-bouche at Entier French Dining, Alila Bangsar

Entier represents a milestone in Nacre’s editorial journey as the site of our first full Experience a little over a year ago. Its cooking remains grounded in nose-to-tail philosophy, minimal waste, and classical technique, evolving thoughtfully without abandoning its core identity.

Its inclusion here is less about a specific dish and more about perspective, a reminder of how our understanding of food and intention shifts over time. Next door, Le Comptoir offers an intimate space for conversation and reflection, shaping an evening that feels complete yet open-ended. We look forward to returning as Entier continues to evolve.

Bocado

Tapas Spread at Bocado, Damansara Heights

Bocado rounds out this collection for a reason: Spanish dining is inherently communal, built around sharing, conversation, and small moments of joy that unfold naturally over the course of a meal.

From mushroom croquetas that vanished almost too quickly to gambas and a dramatic squid ink paella anchoring the table, Bocado reminded us how tapas culture turns eating into conversation. To end the year here is to end it with warmth, laughter, and togetherness.

Honourable Mentions

IL FORNO
A one-metre antipasti board and impeccably fresh seafood at festive buffets proved that generosity, when guided by quality, never feels careless.
READ MORE: IL Forno, Hyatt Centric City Centre KL — Trattoria D’eccellenza

COAST BY KAYRA
An underrated gem specialising in Indian seafood, drawing parallels between Kerala’s coastal bounty and Malaysia’s oceanic treasures. Whole fish moilee and abundant seafood platters are almost outshined by appropriately complemented by the best sweet appam in town.
READ MORE: Coast by Kayra: Voyage to Keralan Shores

HUMBOLDT
Latin American-inspired food and cocktails that reward curiosity in a space designed to be experienced—shallow fried whole rabbit (Conejo Chactado) is not something even the more adventurous of menus in KL offers.
READ MORE: We Followed The Current to Humboldt in Damansara Heights

Conejo Chactado at Humboldt, Damansara Heights

Looking Back, and Forward

As 2025 draws to a close, we are grateful for the meals, conversations, and trust that shaped a year of thoughtful dining and writing. Every restaurant in this list reflects time spent, perspectives formed, and experiences that influenced how we approach food and hospitality at Nacre.

To our readers, thank you for returning, engaging, and allowing the work to grow more reflective and experience-led. To the chefs, restaurateurs, and partners who opened their doors and shared their craft, thank you for the confidence placed in us to tell these stories with care.

This list is how we chose to close the year, deliberately and without haste. As we move forward, we look ahead to returning to familiar tables, discovering new ones, and continuing the conversation with clarity and intent.

Artenoon Tea at Thirty8, Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur

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