When The Malaya restaurant closes in late March, Sydneysiders will have been tucking into its chicken curry and laksa for more than 60 years.

The dishes won’t be missing from the city’s food scene for long though, with the King Street Wharf restaurant set to relocate to Grosvenor Place at 225 George Street, near Circular Quay, in April.

Previous SlideNext Slide

The Malaya’s new home, in the former site of Rosetta restaurant, is significant given the restaurant opened at the other end of George Street, near Chinatown, in 1963.

Its relocation is a loss for King Street Wharf, where it moved in 2001. The Malaya’s third-generation operator Duan Wong says: “It’s definitely less busy [at King Street Wharf]. Often we’re busy [in the restaurant], but I’ll go for a walk and it’s quiet in the streets.”

Wong is bullish about the timing of Malaya’s launch and the location of Grosvenor Place, despite Rosetta closing there in 2021. He explains the light rail works and nearby developments such as Sydney Place hadn’t been completed when Rosetta opened in 2017, with the precinct enduring years of construction.

Wong says many restaurant regulars work near its soon-to-be new home, and after 60 years of trade under the Wong family, The Malaya knows its clientele. Duan’s sister, Isabella, who runs floor operations at the restaurant, says, “Many of our oldest customers started coming in as students in the ’70s and now work in the city, coming in for work but also bringing their families.”

“We have two gentlemen who have been friends since school, and they have a catch-up lunch on their favourite table almost every Tuesday, sometimes even wearing old Malaya merch from past celebrations,” she says.

“Many of our oldest customers have now retired or moved out of Sydney, but still always make a point of coming to see us every time they’re in town, sometimes taking 10 or more takeaway curries home with them to put in the freezer.”

It was Duan and Isabella’s grandfather, Wong Tai See, who opened The Malaya. The merchant seaman “who fell in love with the food from all the places he travelled” had a few businesses in his adopted country, including a hamburger shop in Balmain, before he started trading imported spices.

Australia in the 1950s and 1960s was deprived of the Asian ingredients commonplace today, so The Malaya’s laksa was made with cow’s milk because coconut milk wasn’t available. It became such an ingrained staple, The Malaya still makes it the same way. The laksa now competes with newer favourites on the menu, including the signature Sichuan eggplant, which first appeared in the late 1980s.

Duan and Isabella’s late father Lance and their mother, Givie, updated The Malaya as fresh Asian ingredients became available, and modernised the restaurant’s design. Duan says they’ll continue down that path with the menu and interior at the new 180-seat restaurant at Grosvenor Place – while still retaining some of its heritage.

They’ve reordered the original Finnish-designed chairs, which are still in production, used when The Malaya opened at King Street Wharf in 2001.

“We still have some of the originals in the office,” Duan Wong says. Some things don’t go out of style.

The Malaya’s last service at King Street Wharf is on Saturday, March 29.