Malaysia’s Famous Coliseum Café Falls Victim to Covid
Kuala Lumpur’s iconic Coliseum Café has a long and colourful history. Built in 1921, at the height of the British empire, it was once a favourite hangout for colonial officers, military types, planters and miners.
It served as one of their main meeting places during the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, when armed communists were trying to bring down the colonial government.
They would head to the bar adjoining the restaurant for a drink – perhaps a whisky stengah or a gin and tonic - and discuss how the rebellion was affecting their lives before tucking into a steak or other comforting meal.
Those who wore gun belts would hang them on a wooden hat rack along with their jackets and pith helmets.
The Coliseum Café in downtown Kuala Lumpur before Covid. Image: © Dave Siva
In 2007 a long-retired planter, Cliff Stanley, recalled his visits to the Coliseum many years earlier. "The communist trouble was all we planters would talk about then. It was a tense period for all of us," he told a website, The Malaysian Life.
Even earlier, the writer Somerset Maugham is said to have been a regular at the bar during his sojourns in Kuala Lumpur.
This link with the past was finally broken in June 2021. The Coliseum’s owners announced it had closed for good, just months short of its 100th anniversary - a victim of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns in Malaysia that kept customers away.
It had stopped serving dine-in customers in March 2020 when the pandemic took hold. It had hoped to resume operating and began home deliveries but these were not enough to sustain it.
Traditional fish and chips at the Coliseum Café. Image: © Alan Williams
Instead, its owners took the difficult decision to close when the tenancy of its pre-war building in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman (once called Batu Road) in central Kuala Lumpur expired.
“Yes, it’s closed for good. We are saddened that we couldn’t celebrate our 100th anniversary,” the restaurant franchise’s marketing manager, Azrain Azman, told the website Malaysian Insight.
The Coliseum was opened in 1921 by a group of business partners from Hainan, a tropical island in southern China known for its distinctive food. The original cooks, too, hailed from Hainan.
Throughout its 99-year history, its cuisine was a combination of western and Hainanese-style food. One of its signature dishes was a sizzling steak, served piping hot. The smoke rising from the plate would waft across the room.
The Coliseum in 2010 before being bought by investors. Image: © Kevin Hellon
For decades, the restaurant continued to reflect its colonial heritage. The dark wood décor remained almost unchanged. As the place grew older, so did many of the waiters and kitchen staff, some of whom continued working into their 80s.
They were sometimes grumpy and service could be slow. But the atmosphere was relaxing and the quality of the food kept drawing customers back, especially those in search of a little nostalgia.
The Coliseum’s fame shone on as the years passed. Diners included leading politicians and business leaders. One of Malaysia’s top cartoonists, Mohammad Nor Khalid, popularly known as Lat, published cartoons celebrating its famously smoky atmosphere.
In 2011, a new group of investors bought the Coliseum. They kept the restaurant as it was, with its somewhat run-down, old-world charm.
A Coliseum outlet at Kuala Lumpur’s Mid Valley Megamall. Image: © Alan Williams
Over the next few years, they turned it into a chain, establishing four new outlets, two in Kuala Lumpur, one in nearby Petaling Jaya and one in Putrajaya, the federal administrative centre south of the capital.
These retain something of the spirit of the original but are far more modern. Their menus include the old favourites such as sizzling steak, Hainanese chicken chop, oxtail soup, baked crabmeat and traditional British dishes like fish and chips.
These outlets will remain open for now despite the original restaurant shutting its doors for the last time.
When I dined at the branch at Mid Valley Megamall in Kuala Lumpur in April 2021, it had a modern, welcoming feel. The waiters were young and friendly, and the customers were mainly couples and families. Service was prompt.
A Coliseum place mat featuring Lat cartoons. Image: © Alan Williams
Three of Lat’s cartoons from local newspapers featured on the place mats. Photographs on the walls depicted the Coliseum’s vivid history. A wooden hat rack just like the original – a row of large wooden hooks – hung on one of the walls.
A diner at a table near mine ordered a sizzling steak. When a waiter delivered it to her table, the smoke began billowing up from her plate and spreading outwards. It was reassuring to see that some things hadn’t changed.
Header image: Slices of Light CC BY-NC-ND-2.0
