It’s not often you step into a space filled with vibrant greenery and lush vegetables that you can take home after—yet that was what happened at the Longchamp « Live Green! » dinner at Sentul Pavilion in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last Friday. Guests were delighted at the edible decorations in the light-filled glasshouse, which became even more stunning after sundown. « Live Green! » is a global dining series by the French maison to combine the art of hospitality with the energy of nature—alongside Longchamp’s Summer 2025 collection, naturally. Among some of the notable guests that night donning the Longchamp Summer 2025 collection included actresses Jojo Goh, Eyka Farhana, and Syamim Farid, entrepreneur Jane Chuck, Ashley Lau, Lisha Ho, and more.
For this global dining series, Longchamp Malaysia worked together with Chef Kim Hock Su of one Michelin-star restaurant Au Jardin in Penang to curate a five-course tasting menu featuring all the delightful things that live green. “It’s aligned with what we’re currently doing in our restaurant,” said Su about the Live Green menu. “This menu is very vegetable-forward—it’s to help diners reconnect with nature,” he explained. The majority of the ingredients in this tasting menu are based on what Su and his team could get from our local terroir, heightening our appreciation for local produce. “We also incorporated some local elements and culture in the sauces. This way, you don’t just eat the local vegetables, but you get to taste our culture in these dishes as well,” he said.
Before the dinner started, we were served a selection of freshly baked housemade breads: Au Jardin’s signature corn bread, which is dense and aromatic; lacto-fermented brioche, a subtle yet rich and buttery bread; and Our Thosai Bread, which has a crisp edge and tastes light and tangy. In place of regular butter, we were intrigued by a tomato-shaped placeholder on the table—it turned out to be Heirloom Tomato Chutney Butter, which tasted exactly as it sounded: tart and spiced butter that added another dimension to our bread course.
Then, a score of dapper waiters marched down the room, armed with our first course for the night: Heirloom Beetroot, comprising salt-baked beetroot, gelee, topped with Oscietre caviar and a horseradish emulsion added after. On the plate, you could hardly distinguish between the thinly-sliced beetroot and the gelee, but their textures were starkly different, and the saltiness of the caviar alongside the slightly spicy emulsion complemented all the elements in the dish.
However, of all the courses on the menu, it was the second one that caught our eye the most. The Petit Pois was especially intriguing, consisting of pea custard and crisps, sitting in a Southeast Asian inspired sauce verte. It wasn’t just the Southeast Asian sauce that caught our eye, but the playfulness of the dish. We were served a small bouquet of edible flowers that we could use in our dish to our creativity. We asked Su: What’s particularly special about this recipe?
“This is a green sauce—a sauce verte—that we made for this menu. It has all the local herbs and spices that are easily found here in Malaysia. It’s also very easy to recreate this recipe; all the ingredients are essentially what we can get in our backyard,” he said. But you don’t need to rack your brains with this recipe, as Longchamp will be releasing the full recipe in due time.
Next on the menu was a Red Capsicum Veloute, with Hokkaido scallop carpaccio and anchovy crisps. Once again, the distinction between capsicum and scallop were quite nearly nonexistent until you spooned it into your mouth, and then an explosion of flavours and textures occur. For the mains, we opted for Hay Aged Duck served with carrots and herbs. Finally, the fifth and final course—dessert—came. On paper, it sounded interesting—a fennel sorbet with lime pate de fruit and espuma, atop a jasmine sponge. On the palate, it was amazing. The fennel flavour worked surprisingly well in a sorbet, complemented by the tang of lime and the floral notes of jasmine in a light-tasting sponge cake.
At the end of the dinner, we asked the chef one final question:
How does this menu align with your personal principles? After all, your Michelin-starred restaurant Au Jardin means “garden” too.
“If you look at what we do in our restaurant, you’ll notice that our dishes are always quite vegetable-forward,” said Su. “With vegetables, I feel that there are more possibilities…it’s always a lot more challenging for us to focus on what we can do more with vegetables.”
Discover the full Longchamp Summer 2025 collection here.
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