Bread and Bitters

Two unlikely sister establishments, a bakery-café and a cocktail bar, channel Paris and New York in Kuala Lumpur’s ritzy Damansara district.

- Patrick Kasingsing

One of the first things you notice after entering Huckleberry Food & Fare (after being drawn in by the mouth-watering aroma of baking bread) is the attention to detail. Every nook and cranny is packed with eye-catching and tactile features. “The decorative metal ceiling panels are from Australia, the chairs are authentic TON chairs all the way from the Czech Republic, the encaustic tiles are from Singapore...and I even had feedback from several French expats saying this was the most authentic-looking Parisian café in KL. And that wasn’t even our intention!” Ramesh Seshan of Seshan Design recalls with mirth as he gives me a tour around the café.

Huckleberry Food & Fare

Huckleberry Food & Fare is tucked in a quiet corner of a shophouse in the affluent Damansara neighborhood of Kuala Lumpur. It takes its name from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from which the line, “There ain’t nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked right,” was adopted as the bakery-café’s dictum. It first started out as a standalone bakery serving freshly baked gourmet bread, filling a niche KL residents took to quickly, it soon outgrew its location and necessitated the owners buying the adjoining lot and turning the bakery into a full-fledged café and restaurant.