August 2009

Though Kuala Lumpur boasts its share of fine dining restaurants there have been none to whom I’d confidently take a food-focused friend visiting from San Francisco, Sydney, or Tokyo. Until now, that is. In terms of both overall dining experience and cuisine, Sage is on par with the best of what the rest of the world has to offer. It all comes down to the details.

Though sited within a shopping mall (The Gardens at Mid Valley), Sage feels like a standalone operation. Dark timber floors, taupe walls, blonde wood and sage accents, and vanilla leather chairs lend the main dining room an understated sophistication that would be at home in New York or Paris.

Tables are covered with white cloths and set well enough apart that private conversations need not be carried out with a whisper, and music (cool Brazilian tropicalismo, while we were there) is played at a decibel level that doesn’t require shouting. No matter where in the room you’re sitting the view is fine; to one side, floor-to-ceiling windows reveal a scruffy cityscape backed by green hills while to the other, sage and taupe mosaic tiles frame a pass way through to the restaurant’s semi-open kitchen.

Greeted with a smile, although we arrived at 1:30pm without reservation, my dining partner and I were promptly seated by the window and served a welcome drink (a refreshing ginger beer-ish concoction). As we pondered the menu (for weekday lunch it’s three courses for RM100, with a choice of appetiser, entree, and dessert) we nibbled at some excellent breads, served with a delicious cheese-free pesto-like basil and olive oil puree.

Our appetiser, pate of foie gras and young chicken bundled in thin-as-silk puff pastry and served in a puddle of rich demi-glace, set the tone for the meal, the barely-there, golden brown wrapper enclosing flavourful slices of bird moistened with the fat of the duck liver. Our entrees duelled for supremacy. My lovely square of sea bass, lightly seared and cooked just past the point of still-cool-in-the-middle, was crowned with a single pristine King Prawn and perched atop barely wilted spinach. All swam in a shallow pool of burnt orange tomato and fish stock reduction whose complexity of flavour brought to mind a long-simmered Nicoise bouillabaisse. Every element of the dish was so perfectly prepared it could have stood alone. Together they worked brilliantly.

Across the table my partner ‘mmmmm’d’ his way through a wonderfully tender, rare (cooked to order) piece of Angus beef accompanied by dauphinoise potato (each layer distinct, neither reduced to mush nor undercooked) and green beans tasting as fresh as if they’d been picked that morning (and perhaps they had). For this pepper lover the seasoning was, amazingly, just right. It’s perhaps the first time I’ve eaten beef in a restaurant without wanting to grab for the salt shaker and pepper grinder.

For dessert, both sweet (a very-berry raspberry vacherin, served with raspberry sauce and a snow-white meringue that dissolved on contact with tongue) and savoury (two excellent Australian cheeses – a goat’s milk brie and a cow’s milk cheddar – with thin slices of toasted nut bread and fig paste) hit the mark. Two faultless macchiato closed a meal that I am still recalling with relish more than a month later. Throughout the meal service was consistently five star, friendly but not overly so and always to hand but not hovering.

All in all, an exceptional dining experience that had me practically floating out of the restaurant, wishing that a special occasion justifying a return was just around the corner. Robyn Eckhardt

Awards

Sage Restaurant & Wine Bar was shortlisted in the Best Fine Dining Restaurant category of the Time Out KL Food Awards 2009, 2010 and 2011. The restaurant was also shortlisted in the Best Fusion/Contemporary Restaurant category in 2009. Our food awards are 100% voted for by the people of KL. This way, we guarantee that popularity and consistent performance is rewarded.

Food 40 is our monthly, definitive guide for where to eat in the Klang Valley. No entry into the Food 40 has provided any Time Out team member with a free meal or other incentive. If you have eaten somewhere that you think should rank amongst KL's top 40, email us and we'll check it out: editor@timeoutkl.com.