The green and gold carriages pull out of Singapore in the afternoon. By the second night, dinner is four hands working two kitchens the width of a corridor, somewhere in the dark between Kuala Lumpur and the jungle.
The Eastern & Oriental Express has run this route since 1993. Belmond restored it, closed it for a spell, then brought it back to the rails through Malaysia. The carriages are cherry wood and marquetry, the corridors narrow, the windows large. Outside them the country changes from city to plantation to rainforest over the course of an afternoon.
The train travels slowly on purpose. There is a Piano Bar where a musician plays late. There is an Observation Car open to the warm air at the back. Guests dress for dinner and walk the length of the train to reach it. The whole thing runs at the pace of a long meal, which is the point.
The train travels slowly on purpose. The whole thing runs at the pace of a long meal.
The Splendid EditThe series
André Chiang runs the kitchen as culinary director. The Taiwanese chef built his name at Restaurant André in Singapore, then closed it at its height and returned home to Taiwan. On the Eastern & Oriental he curates an annual guest-chef series that brings friends aboard for a run of journeys through Malaysia.
The series returns for 2026 with Chiang joined by three Michelin-starred guest chefs across the season. The 2025 edition set the shape of it. Vicky Cheng of Wing and VEA in Hong Kong opened. Jason Liu of Ling Long in Beijing and Shanghai followed. Jungsik Yim, who holds three stars in Seoul and New York, closed the run.
Each guest cooks a signature dish alongside Chiang's menu, drawn from their own region and their own memory of it. The through-line is Malaysia: its spices, its markets, the way heat and acid carry a place. The chefs have known each other for years, and the cooking reads that way.
Dinner in the restaurant cars, Eastern & Oriental Express, A Belmond Train — Courtesy of Belmond
The finale
Each journey ends with a four-hands dinner in the restaurant cars, Malaya and Adisorn. Two chefs cook one menu across the length of the meal. Sommeliers pair the courses; the plates come out to a room the width of a train carriage, tables set with silver and the old house china.
After dinner the party moves to the Observation Car. Chiang and his guest sit with the room over cocktails mixed by Shelley Tai, whose menu leans on Singapore, and a live Malaysian jazz band plays. The talk runs to how the dishes were built and why. The train keeps moving through the dark the whole time.
Offboard
The journeys break for excursions. One takes guests into Taman Negara, one of the oldest rainforests on earth, with the chefs along for the walk. The forest is humid and loud and very green. It is also, in a way, the pantry: the flavours on the train come from this part of the world, and the point of stopping is to stand in it for a morning.
The verdict
Most food events ask you to sit still. This one asks you to travel. The cooking is serious and the guests are among the best in Asia, but the train is doing half the work: the landscape sliding past the window, the slow build of three nights, the sense of going somewhere while you eat.
Book a journey with a guest-chef date. Take the four-hands dinner, then stay up in the Observation Car. Sleep to the sound of the rails and wake up further north than you were.
The Eastern & Oriental Express, A Belmond Train, operates three-night Wild Malaysia journeys from Singapore. The guest-chef culinary series returns across the 2026 season. Details and dates through belmond.com.
Photography courtesy of Belmond — © Belmond, Eastern & Oriental Express, A Belmond Train