Eat in George Town Heritage Core, Penang

Tek Sen

• ★ 4.7
• Cantonese
• $$

Tek Sen has run its Carnarvon Street dining room since 1965 and holds a 2026 Bib Gourmand, Penang's benchmark for wok-fried Chinese home cooking.

Auntie Gaik Lean's Old School Eatery

• ★ 4.8
• Peranakan
• $$$

Auntie Gaik Lean's Old School Eatery holds a Michelin star in the 2026 guide, cooking heirloom Nyonya recipes behind a Bishop Street shopfront in Penang.

Sifu Nyonya Cuisine

• ★ 4.4
• Peranakan
• $$

Sifu Nyonya Cuisine on Rope Walk earned a 2026 Bib Gourmand for Penang Peranakan cooking, its septuagenarian chef running forty-odd a la carte dishes.

Bibik's Kitchen

• ★ 4.3
• Peranakan
• $$

Bibik's Kitchen serves heirloom Nyonya recipes under classic Peranakan motifs on Jalan Sri Bahari, a Penang Bib Gourmand pick in the 2026 guide.

Rasa Rasa

• ★ 4.2
• Peranakan
• $

Rasa Rasa keeps daytime hours on Chulia Street Ghaut, pairing pandan nasi lemak sets with Bib Gourmand prices rare even by Penang standards.

Ceki Nyonya Restaurant

• ★ 4.1
• Peranakan
• $$

Ceki Nyonya Restaurant dresses its Sri Bahari shophouse in antiques and card-game nostalgia, serving home-style Peranakan plates in central Penang.

Jawi House

• ★ 4.2
• Peranakan
• $$

Jawi House on Armenian Street is Penang's standard-bearer for Jawi Peranakan cooking, blending Malay and Indian spice work in a cafe-gallery.

Richard Rivalee Nyonya Cuisine

• ★ 4.2
• Peranakan
• $$

Fashion designer Richard Rivalee cooks his grandmother's pork-free Nyonya recipes in an antique-filled Macalister Lane shophouse in central Penang.

Du-An

• ★ 4.2
• Malaysian
• $$

Du-An plates traditional Malaysian cooking with cafe polish on Beach Street in Penang; the skin-on mutton curry is the 2026 Michelin guide's pick.

Thara

• ★ 4.3
• Thai
• $$

Thara brings a Thai chef's seafood-first cooking to a lofty Lorong Prangin shophouse, one of two Thai kitchens holding a Penang Bib Gourmand.

Il Bacaro

• ★ 4.3
• Italian
• $$

Il Bacaro pairs an Italian couple's handmade pastas with Venetian cicchetti inside the Campbell House hotel, Penang's most personal Italian room.

Jaloux

• ★ 4.4
• Italian
• $$

Jaloux hides Chef Hong's hand-rolled pasta behind greenery on King Street; four opening days keep this Penang Italian room permanently full.

Peninsula House

• ★ 4.4
• Modern Australian
• $$$

Peninsula House serves modern Australian sharing plates upstairs in 1937's India House, the handsomest dinner room on Penang's old Beach Street.

Sambal

• ★ 4.0
• Asian fusion
• $$

Sambal reworks Malaysian favourites with European technique at 300 Beach Street, a halal-friendly modern dining room in Penang's banking quarter.

Bao Teck Tea House

• ★ 4.2
• Cantonese
• $$

Bao Teck Tea House steams dim sum in a tiled heritage house with an indoor moss garden, Penang's prettiest room for a slow Cantonese yum cha.

Au Jardin

• ★ 4.8
• 1 MICHELIN star
• Modern European
• $$$$

Au Jardin holds a Michelin star in the 2026 guide, plating produce-led European tasting menus inside a corrugated warehouse at Penang's Hin Bus Depot.

Gēn

• ★ 4.7
• Asian fusion
• $$$$

Gēn is chef Johnson Wong's Michelin-listed tasting room in Penang, building menus from Malaysian produce and local fish down to their bones.

Sood by Chef Ton

• ★ 4.5
• Thai
• $$$$

Sood by Chef Ton brings the Bangkok chef behind Le Du to a 150-year-old Farquhar Street building, Penang's loudest and latest new Thai dining room.

Mémoire

• ★ 4.4
• Asian fusion
• $$$$

Mémoire stages chef Chong Chian Fung's molecular tasting menus on Beach Street, Penang childhood nostalgia rebuilt with smoke, dry ice and sparklers.

Curios-City

• ★ 4.4
• Modern European
• $$$$

Curios-City hides an unsigned wabi-sabi dining room on Lebuh Victoria, pairing European technique with Malaysian twists across set menus in Penang.

Blacklinen

• ★ 4.3
• Steak and seafood
• $$$$

Blacklinen dry-ages beef beside a charcoal grill on level nine of The Millen hotel, chef Benny Yeoh's dark-toned grillroom above Penang's seafront.

Firewood

• ★ 4.4
• Steak and seafood
• $$$

Firewood cooks everything over an open flame in a lofty heritage building on Pitt Street, Penang's purest expression of live-fire restaurant dining.

La Vie

• ★ 4.1
• Modern European
• $$$

La Vie serves Asian-inflected European dinners in the Le Dream Boutique Hotel on Rope Walk, a Michelin-listed Penang room without the ceremony.

Kebaya Dining Room

• ★ 4.4
• Peranakan
• $$$

Kebaya Dining Room sets Peranakan set menus under chandeliers at the Seven Terraces hotel, Penang's dressiest take on Straits Chinese cooking.

Line Clear Nasi Kandar

• ★ 4.3
• Malaysian
• $

Line Clear Nasi Kandar has ladled curry down its famous alley off Jalan Penang since the 1940s, Penang's round-the-clock nasi kandar rite of passage.

Deens Maju Nasi Kandar

• ★ 4.5
• Malaysian
• $

Deens Maju is the nasi kandar Penang locals queue for, a midday-opening Jalan Gurdwara canteen where the ayam goreng line often wraps the block.

Hameediyah

• ★ 4.4
• Malaysian
• $

Hameediyah has served nasi kandar on Campbell Street since 1907 and holds the Malaysia Book of Records listing as the country's oldest, a Penang icon.

Restoran Kapitan

• ★ 4.1
• Indian
• $

Restoran Kapitan keeps its tandoors lit around the clock at the Chulia Street corner, four decades into serving Penang's benchmark claypot briyani.

Tho Yuen

• ★ 4.2
• Cantonese
• $

Tho Yuen steams old-school dim sum on Campbell Street, the veteran Penang teahouse where the first baskets land not long after six in the morning.

Christoph's

• ★ 4.1
• Austrian
• $$

Christoph's serves Wiener schnitzel and Austrian comfort plates in a Stewart Lane living-room of a restaurant, Penang's odd and excellent outlier.

WhatSaeb Boat Noodles

• ★ 4.1
• Thai
• $

WhatSaeb Boat Noodles imports its kitchen team from Thailand and was Penang's first Thai SELECT awardee, ladling proper Bangkok-style bowls.

Goh Thew Chik Hainan Chicken Rice

• ★ 4.2
• Chinese
• $

Goh Thew Chik has carved Hainanese chicken on Chulia Street for over 70 years, Penang's old-guard benchmark for every newer chicken-rice shop.

Tok Tok Mee Bamboo Noodle

• ★ 4.1
• Cantonese
• $

Tok Tok Mee still kneads noodle dough with a bamboo pole at its Campbell Street doorway, serving Penang's bounciest old-school wonton mee daily.

Hot Bowl White Curry Mee

• ★ 4.3
• Malaysian
• $

Hot Bowl has served Penang white curry mee since 1992, the coconut broth arriving mild with a side bowl of chilli paste you stir in yourself.

Laksalicious

• ★ 4.1
• Malaysian
• $

Laksalicious puts every major laksa style under one cheerful Hutton Lane roof, the Bib Gourmand shortcut through Penang's noodle-soup canon.

Bee Hwa Cafe

• ★ 4.3
• Malaysian
• $

Bee Hwa Cafe cooks halal versions of Penang's Chinese hawker canon on Lebuh Dickens, a Bib Gourmand family shop begun as a 1992 street stall.

Restoran Sup Hameed

• ★ 3.9
• Malaysian
• $

Restoran Sup Hameed ladles mutton soup and oxtail sup ekor on Jalan Penang, the mamak soup counter Penang turns to when the day needs rescuing.

The Pinn

• ★ 4.0
• Chinese
• $

The Pinn hand-makes mackerel fish balls and dumplings opposite the Lee Jetty, a small Weld Quay room mixing Penang, Taiwanese and Indonesian bites.

Kheng Pin Cafe

• ★ 4.2
• Malaysian
• $

Kheng Pin Cafe is the morning kopitiam on Jalan Penang whose loh bak stall, five-spice pork rolls fried in beancurd skin, draws half of George Town.

Norm Micro Roastery

• ★ 4.4
• $$

Order House-roast filter coffee

Norm Micro Roastery roasts in an industrial-chic heritage shell on Church Street Ghaut, the Penang cafe where brunch plates match the coffee program.

Constant Gardener Coffee

• ★ 4.3
• $$

Order Single-origin chocolate drinks

Constant Gardener Coffee pours espresso and single-origin drinking chocolate inside the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce building on Light Street.

The Alley

• ★ 4.1
• $

Order Single-origin pour-over

The Alley opened in 2013 as one of Penang's first specialty coffee bars, still pulling single-origin pours and frying churros on Stewart Lane.

Ome by Spacebar Coffee

• ★ 4.5
• $$

Order Hand-brewed drip with Malaysian Liberica

Ome by Spacebar Coffee hand-brews drip coffee in a spare Penang shophouse and placed 56th on the 2025 World's 100 Best Coffee Shops ranking.

Narrow Marrow

• ★ 4.0
• $

Order Tiramisu and craft sodas

Narrow Marrow runs a skinny Beach Street shophouse from afternoon into the night, Penang's art-crowd cafe with six tiramisu flavours on the counter.

The Mugshot Cafe

• ★ 4.1
• $

Order Bagels with homemade yogurt

The Mugshot Cafe bakes chewy bagels for fresh coffee and jars of homemade yogurt on Chulia Street, Penang's long-running backpacker breakfast anchor.

ChinaHouse

• ★ 4.2
• $$

Order Cake counter with 30 daily varieties

ChinaHouse links three heritage buildings between Beach and Victoria streets into Penang's longest cafe, with about 30 cakes on the counter daily.

Urban Daybreak

• ★ 4.1
• Brunch
• $$

Order Flat white with fried chicken waffles

Urban Daybreak opens at 07:30 with Australian-style brunch on Lebuh Bishop, the earliest proper flat white and waffle service in central Penang.

Toh Soon Cafe

• ★ 4.4
• $

Order Hainanese white coffee with charcoal toast

Toh Soon Cafe grills kaya toast over charcoal in a Campbell Street alley, the Penang kopitiam breakfast locals have queued for since the 1950s.

Wells Cafe

• ★ 4.0
• $$

Order Japanese and Nordic style roasts

Wells Cafe brews its own Japanese and Nordic style roasts at the Hin Bus Depot art yard, the natural Penang coffee stop before an Au Jardin dinner.

Hema Hema Ice Cream

• ★ 3.9
• $

Order House-made gelato cones

Hema Hema scoops house-made gelato and rotating fruit sorbets with hand-rolled cones on Lebuh Campbell, Penang's small-batch answer to the heat.

The Warung

• ★ 3.9
• $$

Order Seasonal waffle of the month with an iced white

The Warung rotates seasonal waffles through an industrial Victoria Street room, the George Town brunch stop Penang's students argue over loudest.

Ghee Hiang

• ★ 4.5
• $

Order Tau sar pneah mung-bean biscuits

Ghee Hiang has baked tau sar pneah since 1856 and presses sesame oil to match, the Beach Street institution every Penang visitor carries home.

Le Petit Four Pâtisserie

• ★ 4.3
• $$

Order Croissants with crackling layers

Le Petit Four Pâtisserie laminates Penang's flakiest croissants on Beach Street, led by a patissier trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and it shows.

La Vie en Rose Pâtisserie

• ★ 4.0
• $$

Order Customisable madeleine towers

La Vie en Rose Pâtisserie bakes madeleines behind a pink shopfront on Lebuh Melayu, Penang's specialist counter for the little French shell cakes.

The Maker

• ★ 4.1
• $$

Order Seasonal fruit tarts

The Maker composes patisserie like plated desserts in a roomy Beach Street cafe, the studied, architectural end of Penang's French pastry wave.

Le Dux Patisserie

• ★ 4.0
• $$

Order Glazed entremets

Le Dux Patisserie plates Parisian-salon pastry a few doors from its Beach Street rivals, rounding out Penang's unlikely little French dessert quarter.

Black Kettle

• ★ 4.2
• $$

Order Sourdough loaves

Black Kettle runs a bakery counter, cafe and bistro through a high-ceilinged Beach Street building, Penang's roomiest all-day bread-and-brunch room.

Moody Cow Cafe

• ★ 3.8
• $$

Order Signature layered cheesecakes

Moody Cow stacks over-the-top cheesecakes at its Transfer Road flagship, the dessert stop Penang pairs with a roti canai breakfast next door.

Forest Cloud Coffee Roasters

• ★ 4.0
• Coffee roaster
• $$

Forest Cloud Coffee Roasters runs a roomy Jalan Penang roastery-cafe with in-house roasting and a serious matcha sideline for Penang regulars.

Backdoor Bodega

• ★ 4.6
• Speakeasy
• $$$

Drink Georgetown Gimlet

Backdoor Bodega hides behind a clothing store on Jalan Gurdwara and sits at No. 64 on Asia's 50 Best Bars extended list for 2025, Penang's flagship bar.

No Bar Here

• ★ 4.3
• Retro cocktail bar
• $$$

Drink Megumi Highball

No Bar Here plays 80s and 90s nostalgia a few doors from its older sibling Backdoor Bodega, a Tatler-listed disco-cocktail room in central Penang.

Good Friends Club

• ★ 4.3
• Neighbourhood cocktail bar
• $$

Drink Penang Laksa Negroni

Good Friends Club pours kopitiam-inspired cocktails behind teal doors on Jalan Gurdwara, the Penang bar that turns laksa into a working Negroni.

Magazine 63

• ★ 4.2
• Speakeasy lounge
• $$$

Drink Sultan Negroni

Magazine 63 opened in 2017 behind an unmarked wooden door on Jalan Magazine, Penang's first true speakeasy and still its most theatrical lounge.

Manchu Bar

• ★ 4.1
• Speakeasy
• $$

Drink Elixir Of Youth served in a teapot

Manchu Bar dresses its Rope Walk speakeasy in red lanterns and Qing-dynasty props, pouring Penang cocktails from porcelain teapots until 03:00.

Antarabangsa Enterprise

• ★ 4.0
• Roadside bottle shop bar
• $

Drink Cold big-bottle beers

Antarabangsa Enterprise is a bottle-shop-turned-street-bar on Lorong Stewart, the cheapest cold beer in George Town on plastic chairs in Penang.

Nomad

• ★ 3.9
• Cocktail bar
• $$

Drink Country-hopping cocktail flights

Nomad builds its Penang cocktail menu as a passport, every drink themed to a country, at the quiet end of Kimberley Street's famous supper stalls.

Archipelago

• ★ 4.0
• Courtyard cocktail bar
• $$

Drink Regional spirit cocktails

Archipelago pours from the back door of an Armenian Street shophouse into a plant-lined courtyard, Penang's earliest-opening serious cocktail stop.

Siam Road Char Koay Teow

• ★ 4.8
• $

Try Charcoal char koay teow

Siam Road Char Koay Teow fries one dish over charcoal to a Bib Gourmand standard, the pushcart plate Penang queues an hour for without complaint.

Penang Road Famous Jin Kor Char Kuey Teow

• ★ 4.5
• $

Try Char koay teow with duck egg

Jin Kor has fried char kuey teow inside Joo Hooi Cafe for over 40 years, the Bib Gourmand Penang Road stall celebrities queue beside tourists for.

Penang Road Famous Laksa

• ★ 4.4
• $

Try Assam laksa

Penang Road Famous Laksa ladles a sardine broth of unusual depth on Keng Kwee Street, the Bib Gourmand partner to the cendol queue next door.

Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendul

• ★ 4.5
• $

Try Cendol

Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendul has shaved ice over pandan noodles since 1936, the Keng Kwee Street stall that defines cendol for all of Penang.

Ali Nasi Lemak Daun Pisang

• ★ 4.4
• $

Try Nasi lemak bungkus

Ali Nasi Lemak wraps banana-leaf parcels of coconut rice and sambal at Sri Weld Food Court, the halal Penang breakfast the Michelin guide flags.

Sister Yao's Char Koay Kak

• ★ 4.4
• $

Try Char koay kak fried rice cakes

Sister Yao's fries Teochew rice cakes with egg and preserved radish on Macalister Lane, a morning-only Bib Gourmand stall begun by their father in 1963.

Bridge Street Prawn Noodle

• ★ 4.3
• Hokkien
• $

Try Hokkien mee and loh mee combo

Bridge Street Prawn Noodle serves its Bib Gourmand Hokkien mee mornings only at the far end of Beach Street, Penang's old-time daybreak bowl.

Chowrasta Market

• ★ 4.3
• Street food
• $

Chowrasta Market has traded on Penang Road since the 1890s, Penang's oldest wet market, ringed by jeruk stalls selling pickled nutmeg and mango.

Campbell Street Market

• ★ 4.0
• Street food
• $

Campbell Street Market fills a Victorian hall from about 1900, likely George Town's oldest market building, with stalls spilling down Carnarvon Street.

Medan Renong Padang Kota Lama

• ★ 4.0
• Street food
• $

Medan Renong lines the Esplanade seafront by Fort Cornwallis with evening hawker stalls, Penang's Malay-food court with a Michelin-listed tom yum.

Super Star Koay Teow Soup

• ★ 4.3
• $

Try Koay teow soup with braised chicken feet

Super Star Koay Teow Soup has run its Kimberley Street cart since 1960, a third-generation Bib Gourmand bowl that keeps Penang dinners under RM10.

Ah Boy Koay Teow Th'ng

• ★ 4.2
• $

Try Koay teow th'ng

Ah Boy Koay Teow Th'ng simmers chicken and pork-bone broth on Lebuh Clarke, a second-generation Bib Gourmand breakfast from RM5.50 in Penang.

Roti Canai Transfer Road

• ★ 4.4
• Malaysian
• $

Try Roti canai banjir

Roti Canai Transfer Road has flipped flaky flatbread at its roadside stall for around half a century, Penang's definitive curry-flooded breakfast.

Ee Beng Vegetarian Food

• ★ 3.9
• Chinese
• $

Try Vegetarian economy rice

Ee Beng Vegetarian Food fills trays with meat-free economy rice on Lebuh Dickens, the pay-per-scoop buffet Penang's vegetarians rely on daily.

Joo Hooi Cafe

• ★ 4.2
• $

Try Char koay teow, laksa and lor bak under one roof

Joo Hooi Cafe packs char koay teow, assam laksa, lor bak and duck bee hoon into one corner kopitiam on Penang Road, a full hawker crawl per table.

New Lane Hawker Centre

• ★ 4.3
• $

Try Char koay teow, chee cheong fun, sar hor fun

New Lane Hawker Centre lines Lorong Baru with twenty-odd evening stalls, the after-dark hawker parade Penang locals rate above the seafront rows.

Sri Weld Food Court

• ★ 4.0
• $

Try Nasi lemak, beef koay teow

Sri Weld Food Court feeds Beach Street's office crowd from a shaded row of stalls, the weekday Penang lunch defined by Ali's nasi lemak queue.

Moh Teng Pheow Nyonya Koay

• ★ 4.5
• Malaysian
• $

Moh Teng Pheow has steamed Nyonya kueh since 1933 behind Lebuh Chulia, the Bib Gourmand workshop where Penang buys its angku and rempah udang.

Jit Seng Hong Kong Roasted Duck Rice

• ★ 4.4
• Cantonese
• $

Jit Seng roasts Hong Kong style duck inside a Lebuh Carnarvon coffeeshop, the Penang stall the Michelin guide caught locals queueing for at lunch.

My Own Cafe

• ★ 4.3
• Malaysian
• $

My Own Cafe simmers a Bib Gourmand assam laksa steps from Khoo Kongsi on Cannon Street, the family-run counter Penang quietly keeps to itself.

Ghee Lian

• ★ 4.2
• Thai
• $

Ghee Lian ladles a green tom yum found almost nowhere else at the Esplanade food court, Penang's Bib Gourmand hiding in plain sight by the sea.

Pitt Street Koay Teow Soup

• ★ 4.3
• Chinese
• $

Pitt Street Koay Teow Soup has made eel fish balls daily for over 60 years, the morning Penang bowl the Michelin guide tracked to Carnarvon Street.

Padang Brown Food Court

• ★ 4.2
• Street food
• $

Padang Brown Food Court gathers Penang's locals-first hawkers by the Dato Keramat padang, led by a seafood popiah stall over sixty years old.