REMBAR — Modern Southeast Asian Restaurant and Bar, Penang

Welcome to Rembar

A thirty-seat restaurant and bar in George Town, cooking and pouring modern Southeast Asia.

We sit inside The Courtyard @ Beach Street, in the heart of George Town's UNESCO World Heritage core zone — a warehouse built in the 1920s and reborn as a dining and cultural hub. Ours is one small room within it, where the kitchen and the bar read from the same page. Almost everything starts as a rempah: the spice paste pounded from lemongrass, galangal, chilli and turmeric that carries a whole dish, and that we build our cocktails to sit beside rather than compete with.

Rembar opened in 2025, run by husband-and-wife co-founders — Bon in the kitchen, Shewei behind the bar — alongside a small crew who treat the room like their own dining table. Pull up a seat at the counter or book a table — either way, you're eating and drinking the same thing we would.

"No flame was meant for betrayal."

From "bowl," a hand-painted text piece by Neoh Shin Yen

The Team

One kitchen, one bar, one team

The Rembar team gathered outside the restaurant in George Town

The Rembar team · George Town

Nothing here happens solo.

Every dish and every drink passes through the same small crew — tasted, argued over and refined together before it ever reaches a table. Cooks who plate, pour and run food; a bar that talks to the pass all night.

Thirty seats run on a handful of people who treat the room like their own dining table. One shared standard, held by everyone who works it.

The Name

Why Rembar

Rempah is the spice paste underneath almost every dish in Southeast Asia — pounded lemongrass, galangal, chilli, shallot, turmeric, cooked down until it carries the whole plate. It rarely gets named on a menu, and it does most of the work anyway.

Rembar takes its name from it. Almost everything that leaves the kitchen — the rendang, the crab cakes, the otah — starts the same way: as a rempah, before it becomes anything else.

The kitchen isn't only Southeast Asian, either. A Chinese thread runs through it too — the dumplings, the noodle rolls — built the same way: as a rempah first, before it becomes anything else.

Rembar

Rempah

Everything starts the same way

The Bar

Cocktails that read the menu first

Guava

Sarawak Tuak · Guava · Eldoria Elderflower Liqueur · Saline · CO2 · Lime Leaf Oil

Bright and floral with a salty edge — built to disappear fast on a hot afternoon.

Asam Boi

Glen Grant 10 Years · Oolong · Plum · Pimm's · Calamansi · Lemon · Apple Vinegar · Soda

Whisky steeped in oolong and sour plum — the tannin cuts right through the sweetness.

Nightstall Sling

Fords Gin · Amaro · Tamarind · Pineapple · Lemon · Fish Sauce · Mint & Coriander Foam

Fish sauce and tamarind under a herb foam — built to taste like a night market, not a bar.

Pepper Sour

Herradura Blanco Tequila · Sarawak Pepper · Lumina Triple-Sec · Nutmeg Mace · Lime

Sarawak pepper heat riding under bright citrus — sharp, not shy.

Classics, Served Straight

No twists here — the standards, made properly.

French 75 Airmail Old Cuban Aperol Spritz Americano Aviation Hanky Panky Pegu Club

Homebrew / Temperance

A full non-alcoholic program built with the same intent as the cocktail list — tamarind, nutmeg and spice, made with as much care as anything with booze in it.