As a child growing up in Sandakan, Sabah, Raphael Peter Lee recalls being poor and eating very simple dishes, like rice and eggs. His grandparents weren’t around so Lee says that unlike many chefs, this also meant he didn’t have very strong culinary influences driving his childhood memories.

“My grandparents all passed away before I grew up and could actually remember them. I wish I had the inspiration from my grandmothers’ cooking, which I think most excellent chefs have but I do not have that inspiration to connect with so that’s why I have always tried very hard to find myself and my purpose,” he says.

Lee grew up watching celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver on television and by 18, he had decided that he wanted to become a chef. So he left for culinary school in Kota Kinabalu and eventually ended up working first in Singapore for a few years and then in Melbourne, Australia for a further three years.

Oitom is cosmopolitan and chic, but more importantly, it is now a restaurant driven by the mission to elevate traditional Sabahan recipes. — OITOM

He says it was while he was in Australia that he began questioning his purpose and identity as a chef.

“Both countries gave me different training experiences – I learnt different techniques and developed a culinary mindset.

“When I was in Singapore, I was all about, ‘Okay, just work, work, work and move up the ranks.’ And then when I moved to Melbourne, that’s when I started to think about my identity,” he says.

Lee came back to Sabah after some issues with his visa in Australia. When he returned – after eight years of being away – he played around with the idea of running a pasta restaurant, because he was very passionate about hand-made pasta.

But he also realised that at that point, there were no other restaurants in Sabah utilising the wealth of endemic ingredients in the state. Ultimately, he had to figure out if he wanted to run a restaurant driven by pasta or purpose. He chose the latter.

When he first started upscale eatery Oitom, Lee had never worked at a fine-dining restaurant before but along the years, he has refined his craft and figured out how to make the food of his home state shine. — OITOM

Although Lee had worked overseas, he had never actually worked the kitchens of a fine-dining restaurant before. So he turned to Rene Redzepi, the god-saviour of sustainability and Noma, the three Michelin-starred restaurant that he founded. Lee took inspiration from the ingredient-driven focus that Noma was spearheading.

In 2019, Lee began the renovation work on his fine-dining restaurant Oitom (the word means ‘black’ in Kadazan-Dusun language) in Kota Kinabalu. He used those months of construction to watch YouTube videos and figure out how to run a fine-dining restaurant for the very first time.

When Lee finally opened Oitom, arguably Sabah’s first fine-dining restaurant with a local lens, his focus was purely on using Sabah ingredients, not on traditional Sabahan cuisine. He says when he looks back at his food now, some of it was just embarrassing, but he was also figuring it out as he went along.

As the years passed, he attracted large numbers of international visitors and he realised he had to move to a better location, as the previous space was constantly flooded outside and diners would often turn up soaking wet!

“My heart broke when I saw my customers all dressed up and completely wet and cold when they got to the restaurant. So I knew I had to move,” he says.

The food at Oitom now draws from Lee's own Kadazan-Dusun heritage and conversations that he has with Sabahan elders. — OITOM

Oitom is now in a somewhat unassuming new location, surrounded by other shop lots but you’ll know you’re in a different space once you enter the eatery, which is chic and sophisticated and centred around a huge open kitchen.

The food has changed yet again to reflect Lee’s growing sense of identity in line with his Kadazan-Dusun heritage (he is half Chinese and half Kadazan-Dusun).

Lee says he realised he wasn’t paying tribute to his own heritage when a famous international food journalist came to his restaurant and wrote a review saying that the food reminded him of Chinese cuisine he had sampled in Beijing!

“I was motivated by that statement because I was reminded again to have that purpose,” he says.

Lee's grouper with pandan beras linopot reconfigures the traditional leaf-wrapped rice of his community and gives it a delicious new direction. — ABIRAMI DURAI/The Star

These days, Lee is on a mission. He has more conversations with his Kadazan-Dusun elders, including his mother (who is Kadazan-Dusun) and has refocused his attentions on refining recipes rooted in tradition and heritage. Since refining his mission, he has started collecting books on traditional Sabah cuisine and ingredients and even travels outside of Kota Kinabalu to find ingredients in smaller towns in Sabah.

“This year, what has changed is we have moved into the history and culture behind traditional recipes. So we would digest for example, what is linopot? What is the essence and meaning of it?

“We also consult with uncles, aunties and friends and ask when we meet them – ‘What’s the story behind this?’ For example, linopot is rice that is cooked and wrapped with tarap leaves. The idea is to preserve the rice so that it can be eaten later in the day. But wrapping it in the leaf also gives it a distinctive flavour.

Delicious brioche roll with nori butter at Oitom. Nori (dried seaweed) is popular in Sabah, which is renowned for its seafood. — OITOM

“So by doing all this, I am rediscovering my own culture. Because when I was growing up in Sandakan, I was more attuned to my Chinese culture and now I am discovering my Kadazan-Dusun heritage.

“So even though Oitom has been operating for close to five years, for me, 2024 is just the starting point. I think this year is the true beginning of my journey,” says Lee.

On the menu at Oitom now, you can find fascinating interspersions of local ingredients and heritage cuisine, like hinava, flower prawn; and caviar and Tenom chicken, black garlic and kelulut honey.

At his recent four-hands dinner with Aidan Low of KL’s Akar Dining, highlights from Lee’s contributions included the Ikejime grouper with grilled tomato XO and pandan beras linopot, a modern reworking of a traditional dish with all its parts still intact.

His penjaram bread with tapai sorbet and bambangan gel was also inspired, combining a classic Bajau kuih with other components that complemented it to perfection.

Having embarked on his own quest to discover heritage recipes from his home state – Lee says that he appreciates that bigger restaurants in Kuala Lumpur are showcasing ingredients from Sabah and Sarawak and inadvertently shining a spotlight on them.

But his hope is that the restaurant owners and chefs in KL actually come to Sabah and meet the growers and producers and understand the context and meaning so deeply and inexorably intertwined with the ingredients.

“In some ways it is good, because without the Peninsular Malaysian restaurants using the ingredients from different parts of Malaysia, the bigger market would not know what we actually have here.

“But it would be more meaningful if the chefs came to Sabah and connected with people here, allowing them to properly appreciate and understand the livelihood behind the food they procure.

“For example, the Kita Food Festival held in Sabah is a very great initiative to have conversations around that and to experience the diversity here.

“So when these chefs and restaurant owners go back, they have more value or appreciation – not just through the ingredients that they receive from suppliers – but through a lived experience,” says Lee.