All activities / Culinary / Cooking / George Town
Culinary / Cooking in George Town
The capital of Penang and a UNESCO World Heritage city on the north-west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. George Town is widely regarded as Malaysia's street-food capital, where Malay, Chinese and Indian kitchens met over generations to produce a distinctive Penang cuisine, from assam laksa and char kway teow to nasi kandar and Nyonya dishes, cooked at hawker stalls and taught in a cluster of long-running cooking schools.
Why here
George Town is the place to learn Malaysian food at its source. The old city, UNESCO-listed since 2008, grew up as a trading port where Malay, southern Chinese and Tamil communities lived side by side, and their kitchens blended into a cuisine that Penangites will argue is the best in the country. The proof is on the street: assam laksa, a sour mackerel-and-tamarind noodle soup, char kway teow fried over roaring charcoal, char siew and Hokkien mee, Indian nasi kandar and mee goreng, and the Peranakan or Nyonya dishes that came from Chinese-Malay intermarriage. A cooking class here is the best way in, and the good ones start where the cooks start, at a morning wet market, haggling for fresh turmeric, galangal, belacan and just-caught fish before heading to an open kitchen to cook a spread and eat it. Between classes you can eat your way through the hawker centres and heritage shophouse cafes. For anyone who wants to understand South-East Asian food rather than just tick off dishes, George Town rewards a few days and an empty stomach.
Best months
Cooking classes and hawker eating run year-round; Penang is hot and humid throughout with brief downpours, heaviest around the September to November inter-monsoon. Classes typically begin early with a market tour before the heat and the produce sell out, then move to a hands-on kitchen session and a shared meal, so plan for a morning that runs into a late lunch. Book directly with the schools, which are small and popular; sessions run most days but fill in high season and around Chinese New Year.
Getting there & around
George Town is easy to reach: Penang International Airport is about 30 minutes from the old town with domestic and regional flights, and the city is also connected by train and bus to Kuala Lumpur. The heritage core is compact and walkable, and the cooking schools include a market tour with transfers or a walkable start point. Stay in a restored shophouse hotel in the old town to be within walking distance of both the classes and the best hawker stalls.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Nazlina Spice Station
SchoolNazlina Spice Station is run by Nazlina Hussin, a self-taught Penang cook turned guide, and has taught cooking and market tours in George Town since June 2009, which it says is the longest-running such class in Malaysia. A session starts with a walk through a morning market to learn the ingredients, then moves to an open-air kitchen for hands-on cooking of Penang street food and a shared meal. It has been listed by Lonely Planet since 2010 and is in the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame.
Penang Homecooking School
SchoolPenang Homecooking School is the class of Pearly Kee, a Penang Nyonya who teaches traditional Peranakan cooking alongside Malay, Indian and street-food dishes from her home in the hills above George Town. Classes begin with a guided morning-market tour explaining the herbs, spices and produce, then move to her outdoor cooking stations for hands-on preparation of dishes chosen in advance. She has taught for more than a decade and caters for gluten-free and vegan diets.