ATAS Modern Malaysian Eatery, The RuMa Hotel KL

Located on the mezzanine level of the newly opened The RuMa Hotel and Residence is ATAS, the hotel's specialty restaurant offering modern Malaysian cuisine. This modern, chic eatery aims to present guests with a distinctly Malaysian experience, through its interior, warm hospitality and the freshest locally sourced ingredients.

Its name is inspired by the Malay word for "upstairs", and to get to the restaurant, guests literally have to go up the stairs, past the central showpiece "butterfly kebaya" by renowned local designer Bernard Chandran. Atas also cheekily refers to something "upper class" and while the food and interior here is pretty atas, I have to say, every plate successfully showcased the Malaysian influence.

Helming the kitchen here is Executive Chef Tyson Gee, who hails from Vancouver, Canada. Inspired by his culinary adventures throughout Southeast Asia, from Thailand to Malaysia, Chef Tyson delivers familiar flavours in contemporary ways and incorporates a sense of artistry into every bite.

"At The RuMa, we don’t have a coffee house, or an all-day dining restaurant; instead, we have our signature restaurant ATAS, where my goal isn’t to deconstruct classical or traditional Malaysian dishes but to reinterpret local ingredients and flavour profiles into something uniquely Malaysian,” said Chef Tyson.

We started our culinary journey here with a couple of snacks, namely the Blue tiger prawn with betel leaf and charred coconut (RM45) and Chicken liver parfait on buttermilk waffle with roselle jam (RM21). These are designed so that you can pop the whole thing in your mouth, to enjoy all the flavours that the chef intended for you to experience. The latter turned out to be my favorite dish of the afternoon - rich, luscious chicken liver parfait complemented beautifully by the tart roselle jam, on a crisp waffle. We love their complimentary soft bread rolls too, which are served with butter topped with Sarawak highland pepper, tasting unusually of citronella.

Another highlight for us was the Cured ocean trout served with puffed tapioca and sambal dressing (RM55). Use the crisp puffed tapioca to scoop up some of the cured ocean trout and sambal dressing for a fiery bite.

Chef Tyson employs a Mibrasa charcoal oven in his kitchen, which gives a lovely smokiness to his dishes. This was evident in both the mains that we tried - the Seabass with Chinese celery, basil and charred spring onion (RM105) and Charred tiger prawns with salted egg, curry spices and laksa mint (RM115). To accompany the mains, we had the colorful Jasmine rice salad (RM25), their version of nasi ulam with crispy chicken skin, spring onion and sesame, which was a little lacking in taste but made up with by the full-of-umami Red braised mushrooms with peanuts and Thai basil (RM25).

On weekdays, they also offer an Express Set Lunch for RM98 nett per person, which comes with four snacks, choice of main course and dessert. For snacks, there was the Otak-otak with calamansi, coriander and ikura, Rojak with rose apple, ulam raja and tamarind, Blue sapphire panna cotta wing bean salad (ie with a blue cheese sauce), and Pani puri with mushroom masala and creme fraiche.

For mains, we selected the Salt grass lamb, coated in onion ash and comes with peas and garlic sauce. To end, dessert of Matcha panna cotta with mango sorbet is served.

We also ordered additional desserts from their a la carte menu. Durian lovers, they do an amazing Durian ice cream sundae (RM45) here. Using Musang King durian (though it might change depending on the fruit's availability), the ice cream was super rich, thick and creamy. The ice cream was topped with pistachio, gula Melaka, coconut jelly and kuih loyang.

ATAS proudly supports locally produced Malaysian chocolate from Pahang. They use single origin 70% dark chocolate to create this delicious dessert.

Mandarin, salted caramel, chocolate sorbet

ATAS a la carte menu

Click here for the current a la carte menu on their website.

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Pork-free.

Opening times: Lunch 12pm - 2.30pm; Dinner 6.30pm - 10.30pm.

Location: ATAS Modern Malaysian Eatery, The Ruma Hotel and Residences, 7 Jalan Kia Peng, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Tel: 03- 2778 0888


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