Wine shop with wine bar at retail prices in Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI), Kuala Lumpur

Corks Out

Shelf Price at the Back Bar

3.5 of 5

Corkage is the quiet tax on drinking wine in Kuala Lumpur. Corks Out, on Jalan Burhanuddin Helmi in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, simply declines to collect it. From the street it looks like an ordinary bottle shop. Walk past the racks to the back and you find a dim little bar with tables, soft jazz and a working kitchen. The rule is simple. Whatever you pull off the shelf is charged at the retail price, whether it goes home in a bag or gets opened at your table.

The team picks the wines themselves, and the count is past 250 labels, many from small producers across the Old and New Worlds. A wine of the month gets a discount, which is a decent excuse to try something you cannot pronounce. Look in the chiller for the short run of Lebanese bottles, rare in this city and a good detour from the usual Bordeaux. Anyone who spent years on the consulting road paying hotel-bar markups will recognize this arrangement as something close to a public service.

The food is better than a wine shop has any right to serve. The menu changes, but it runs from tapas-style plates to steaks and pastas, and the dish people bring up is a fiery sambal fried rice with smoked duck, which stands up to a big red better than most French cooking would. TTDI is a neighborhood of families and joggers, so the room stays calm. Pick a bottle you have never heard of and let the price tag end the conversation.

Order this

Any bottle off the shelf, at the shelf price, Something from the small Lebanese selection in the chiller, The wine of the month, Spicy sambal fried rice with smoked duck

The damage

$$

Go

A weeknight evening; hours have varied, so check Instagram before heading over

Find it

60 Jalan Burhanuddin Helmi, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur

Instagram

@corksoutkl