Arshad Kamarulzaman

Arshad Kamarulzaman signed three restaurant leases in a single year — the same year most restaurateurs in Penang were still counting their pandemic losses. He came from construction, not kitchens. But what he understood about buildings would prove more useful than anything a culinary degree could teach.

Malay cuisine needs to be understood, respected and presented with full honesty.

The Builder’s Eye #

Before his first restaurant opened, Arshad Kamarulzaman spent his career in construction. The transition seems improbable until you walk through George Town’s UNESCO World Heritage core zone, where Irama Dining Group now operates from the kind of buildings that define the city’s identity: a heritage shophouse on Carnarvon Street, the second floor of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, a colonial mansion on Millionaire’s Row.

A developer sees square footage and return on investment. Arshad saw something else entirely: defensible ambiance that no purpose-built restaurant could replicate, in a city where heritage real estate still priced below its experience value. His wife and co-founder, Bella Rahman, brought the hospitality instinct he lacked — an understanding of how food, service, and atmosphere combine into something guests remember. Her presence became so central to the group’s identity that Penang artist Mandy Maung painted her portrait in traditional kebaya dress as a mural that now appears across every Irama Dining venue. The lady in the mural is not decoration. She is the brand.

Forty Seats and a Borrowed Legend #

Café Lagenda opened in December 2015 on Campbell Street in George Town with forty seats and a concept borrowed from Penang’s most famous son. P. Ramlee — actor, singer, director, dead since 1973 — provided the theme. Dishes carried titles from his films: Nasi Goreng Bujang Lapok, Pak Belalang Chicken Rendang. The café made an implicit argument that Penang’s food culture, celebrated worldwide for its hawker stalls and Chinese seafood, had room for a different kind of pride — Malay pride, presented with dignity.

Halal certification was built into the group’s identity from day one. This was not strategy; it was conviction. In a city where roughly 60% of the national population — observant Muslims — cannot eat at most of the hawker stalls that made Penang famous, the Kamarulzamans were building for an audience that had always been present but rarely served at the level they deserved.

The learning curve was steep. A construction professional understands load-bearing walls and project timelines; he does not instinctively understand food costing, kitchen workflow, or the psychology of a dining room. Arshad learned by doing — running a single café for four years before attempting anything larger, absorbing the rhythms of service that no textbook captures. Café Lagenda built a TripAdvisor following that eventually reached number twenty-eight among 1,772 George Town restaurants, with 390 reviews averaging 4.5 stars. By September 2019, Arshad and Bella opened their flagship: Irama Dining Penang, in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce building, with crystal chandeliers, a rooftop terrace overlooking the Esplanade, and the first of Bella’s murals.

When Everyone Else Closed #

The COVID-19 Movement Control Orders hit Malaysia in March 2020. What followed was, by any measure, an existential reckoning for the restaurant industry. Operating hours shortened, then disappeared, then returned under restrictions that persisted through 2021. Restaurants across Penang closed permanently by the hundreds.

Arshad relocated Café Lagenda during this period — from Campbell Street to Carnarvon Street — a move that required operational continuity through the most difficult trading conditions the industry had seen. That the relocation happened at all, rather than a closure, revealed something about the founders’ financial discipline.

What happened next revealed something about their conviction. In January 2022, with the industry still cautious, the group opened Sutera on Armenian Street — a halal Chinese restaurant offering dim sum, char kway teow, and wantan mee to Muslim diners who had grown up watching others eat these dishes. The marketing tagline was three words in Malay: “Tanpa was was.” Without doubt. Three months later, The Tamarra opened in a colonial mansion on Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah — a 400-seat premium events venue. By July, Irama Dining KL opened in a heritage bungalow in Kuala Lumpur: the first expansion outside Penang. Revenue grew 79% year-on-year. Total assets increased 163%.

It was about conviction. Counter-cyclical expansion in restaurants is uncommon because it is genuinely dangerous — leases signed, staff hired, infrastructure built against a market that has just demonstrated its fragility. The Kamarulzamans’ bet was that the halal fine dining gap was structural, not cyclical, and therefore immune to the panic that caused their competitors to contract.

Seven Concepts, One Mission #

By late 2025, Arshad and Bella operated seven distinct restaurant concepts across two Malaysian states: casual heritage café, upscale Malay fine dining, halal Chinese, premium events, a KL flagship, and — opened December 12, 2025 in partnership with Ikhwan and Ikmal Siru — IRAMA Signature at IOI City Mall Putrajaya, aggregating 200 dishes from across the portfolio into a single 150-seat room.

Each concept fills a distinct position in the halal dining matrix, creating a portfolio where a slow quarter at one venue can be offset by strength at another. The multi-concept structure is a deliberate hedge against the single-restaurant risk that destroys most hospitality businesses — and it came from a man who had never run a kitchen. The hotel partnership launched in 2023, when a joint venture with EVS Holdings opened The Leith Hotel in a heritage property on Leith Street, gave the group its first foothold outside pure food service.

Arshad has spoken publicly about the barriers facing those who would follow his path. “Entry barriers such as high start-up costs and manpower shortages deterred newcomers,” he told Free Malaysia Today in December 2025. The observation contains a quiet acknowledgement: the difficulties that keep competitors out are the same difficulties that made his own decade-long journey so improbable. Construction taught him to build. Penang taught him what to build it for.

The philosophy that connects these disparate rooms is his own: that Malay cuisine “needs to be understood, respected and presented with full honesty.” Not modernized beyond recognition. Not dressed in borrowed sophistication. Elevated on its own terms, in buildings that carry their own history, for an audience that has waited long enough.

Last updated: March 15, 2026