Hospitality and Ancestral Cooking with Chef Kyo Pang

This May, Kyo Pang, chef/owner of beloved New York City cafe Kopitiam, will bring her signature Malaysian hospitality to an exclusive four-course breakfast at Platform by JBF. Ahead of her event, the James Beard Award semifinalist® shares more about her story, including her hospitality philosophy, the dish she’s most excited to serve at her event, and what she hopes diners walk away with.

You could say that becoming a chef and restaurant owner was written in the stars for Kyo Pang. Her father owned a coffee shop on the Malaysian island of Penang, and when she was born, a fortune teller’s reading revealed to her parents that one of their kids would continue the legacy. Plus, as the eldest daughter, there was an unspoken obligation to “inherit everything that will be passed along to you, especially when it comes to cooking,” Pang says. 

Initially, Pang focused on her studies and pursued a career in the entertainment business in New York City. But when the signs became too numerous to ignore, she reconsidered. As her parents got older, she thought about her legacy. Pang is a third-generation Baba Nyonya, a group of Malaysians that trace their heritage back to early settlers from China, and have passed down ancestral cooking techniques and family recipes that form a rich culinary tradition blending Chinese and Malaysian cuisines. She saw how much joy her father derived from their conversations about food, and when a location came to fruition, she knew the stars had aligned.

In the fall of 2015, Pang opened Kopitiam, a small cafe on New York City’s Lower East Side, serving coffee, tea, classic Malaysian breakfast fare like kaya butter toast and nasi lemak, as well as savory Malaysian dishes.

Kopitiam translates to coffee shop in Hokkien, but coffee shops in Malaysia are quite different to those in the U.S. Pang explains that coffee culture in New York City is more about convenience and loyalty is contingent on neighborhood, whereas in Malaysia, owners develop relationships with their customers, with generations of one family going to the same coffee shop.

“I hang out with my father at the coffee shop that he started with my grandfather,” Pang says. “And the old man who [now] owns the coffee shop is as old as my grandfather, and then he knows everything about [my] entire family.”

At her event at Platform by JBF, chef Pang hopes to convey her signature hospitality with a four-course Malaysian breakfast. “Kopitiam is like your own grandparents’ place—whenever you come, doesn’t matter who you are, no matter rain or shine, we’ll always serve the bowl of soup that’ll warm you up,” she says.

It’s fitting that the dish chef Pang is most looking forward to serving Platform diners is Malaysian-style “shark fin” soup. “Whenever you go to a wedding, they serve it as a second dish after the appetizer,” she says. Instead of shark fin, Pang employs julienned konjac, a starchy root vegetable, that replicates the clear jelly noodle-like look and actual texture of shark fin. Pang says that in Malaysia, shark fin soup is often finished with whiskey—her own family used Remy Martin VSOP Cognac—which she says helps make the seafood taste less fishy for some palates. For her take, she reaches for red vinegar to make all the flavors pop, which also include chicken stock, crab, and oyster sauce. “When it comes to Baba Nyonya cuisine, we say that single ingredients create a harmonious relationship with one another.”

She hopes that by serving some of her favorite dishes from her childhood, diners will gain a broader perspective and deepened appreciation of Malaysian cuisine. “Malaysian food is still very underrepresented, and people don’t understand when it comes to Baba Nyonya cuisine. They think Malaysian cuisine is all same” Pang says, noting that there are many different regional Malaysian cuisines. “Baba Nyonya cuisine, for us, we specialize in colorful dishes. I hope that more and more people know about the stories behind it.”