Season 11 - Episode 9 - What No One Tells You About Building a Restaurant in Dubai | Akmal Anuar

The Chef JKP Podcast

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Season 11 continues with a story that’s as honest as it is inspiring.
From a small hawker stall in Singapore to standing on the Michelin stage in Dubai, Chef Akmal Anuar has lived a journey built on discipline, sacrifice, and starting from zero more than once.
He didn’t grow up loving food. He grew up watching his parents hustle to feed their community. Cooking came later, through tough kitchens, rejection, and a moment that changed his life at Les Amis.
In this episode, Akmal opens up about the reality of chasing your dream in kitchens that demand everything from you, what it means to rebuild after losing it all, and how it felt to share the Michelin stage with his parents, the same people who once made him hate cooking.
It’s an episode about humility, family, and finding peace after years of fighting to prove yourself.
🎧 What You Will Hear In This Episode
• Growing up in a hawker family and learning what hard work really means
• The moment that made him want to be a chef
• Lessons from Les Amis and the brutal discipline of early kitchen life
• Building Three Fils from scratch and surviving when no one showed up
• The turning point when Iron Chef Morimoto walked in for dinner
• How failure and partnership taught him to protect himself and start again
• The Michelin star moment he shared with his parents
• What success means to him now and why he cooks for purpose, not ego
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Follow them:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/potatogoodnessgcc/
Website – https://www.potatogoodnessgcc.com
👨‍🍳 Follow Chef Akmal Anuar
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/akmalanuarofficial
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/akmal-anuar-747b881a3/
Website – https://eatwhiterice.com/
👨‍🍳 Follow Chef JKP
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LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-knight-paccheco-447b1b17/
TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@jamesknightpaccheco
🎙️ Chapters
00:00 Introduction
04:00 Growing up around hawker stalls and learning tough love
10:00 The moment that changed everything at Les Amis
18:00 Lessons from the kitchen and the discipline that shaped him
26:00 Working at Iggy’s and finding confidence as a young chef
36:00 Moving to Dubai and the early days at Zengo
47:00 Starting over with Three Fils and learning through failure
55:00 When Iron Chef Morimoto walked in and everything changed
1:08:00 The Michelin moment with his parents and what it really meant
1:18:00 Why he cooks for purpose now and what he wants the next generation to know

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