Dining · Peranakan · Penang
Ivy’s Nyonya Cuisine
In George Town, Ivy Chan cooks her husband's family's Nyonya recipes, with the vegetables still shredded the way brides once had to.
A family kitchen in George Town
Ivy’s Nyonya Cuisine is a Peranakan restaurant in George Town, Penang, run by a married couple: Ivy Chan cooks, and her husband, Dragon Tan, looks after the tables. In 2025 Malay Mail described it as an eighteen-year-old eatery built on Tan’s family recipes.
In 2013 it occupied a converted pre-war house on Chow Thye Road, off Jalan Burma. It has since moved to Jalan Kedah, into a larger room, and Michelin, which lists it as a Bib Gourmand, notes that the menu came through the move unchanged.
Penang Nyonya, cut by hand
The cooking is Penang Nyonya home food. Michelin points diners to the sharing set menus, which gather the house best-sellers, among them Kapitan chicken curry and joo hoo char, which it describes as spicy stir-fried mixed vegetables in chilli paste.
That dish is laborious to prepare. Yam bean and carrot are cut into thin strands, a skill that was once a test for brides marrying into a Nyonya family, and braised until very soft. A 2013 review also singled out a coconut-rich beef rendang and bee koh moi, a black glutinous rice pudding scented with pandan.
A second table in Petaling Jaya
In August 2025 the couple opened a second Ivy’s in Petaling Jaya, inside the canteen of Heritage International School, which feeds students by day and diners in the evenings and at weekends. It came about through the school’s chairman, Tan Seng Kee, who had met the owners over a meal in Penang.
Malay Mail’s reviewer, who paid for the meal there, noted several Penang touches: kangkung cooked the Penang way, in a wetter belacan and chilli sauce; lobak seasoned with Penang five-spice; sambal hae bee stir-fried over a hot wok until dry and fragrant; and a turmeric-based acar fish, lightly pickled and less oily than most.
Sources: Michelin Guide; Malay Mail; Miss Tam Chiak
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