About
How we began.
Malaysia’s first speakeasy restaurant.
Our motto
Five-star taste. Two-star price.
Four friends, one frustration.
Jibril opened in SS15 Subang Jaya in 2015, started by four friends who met at law school. We had no restaurant experience and no business telling anyone how to run one. What we had was a simple frustration: good food was always expensive, and cheap food was always a compromise. Nobody seemed to be doing both at once.
So we tried. The idea was a proper night out, properly halal, with food worth coming back for, at a price that didn’t punish you for it. A decade later that’s still the whole point of the place. The only thing that’s changed is how many rooms we get to do it in.
Why we’re called Jibril.
The name came before the restaurant. In 2013, we wrote and staged a courtroom drama for the UiTM Law faculty’s annual mock trial. The lead character was a sharp, unconventional lawyer who read people better than anyone in the room. We called him Jibril.
The play landed. People wanted a sequel, a novel, a series. Instead, a couple of years later, we put his name on a restaurant, and tried to build a room that felt like him: sophisticated, a little mysterious, but never cold to the people who walked in. We came from a world of arguments and persuasion. We just make a better butter chicken than we used to make a closing statement.
Before Jibril, there was ice cream.
Before Jibril there was ice cream. In our final semester, we took a punt and opened a coconut ice-cream shop in SS15. It did better than we had any right to expect, paid itself back fast, and pushed us into a bigger lot than we knew what to do with.
Subang Jaya likes a concept, so we did something stupid and specific: we built a restaurant hidden behind the ice-cream shop, with a secret entrance. No sign, no explanation, just a door most people walked straight past. The ones who found it told everyone they knew. That door is still how Jibril works today.
Ten years on, we’re across the Klang Valley and down in Johor. And still run by the same stubborn idea we started with. Five-star taste, two-star price, and a few doors worth looking for.
What we run on
How we measure ourselves.
Three things we judge ourselves on, whichever door you find.