Lavo

Two Rooms, One Address: The Tropicana Township Dining Experiment

Petaling Jaya's dining scene has long been defined by two competing gravitational pulls: the casual suburban coffeeshop tradition that made neighbourhoods like SS2 and Damansara Utama famous, and a newer wave of destination restaurants that use PJ's lower rents and quieter streets to attempt something more considered than Kuala Lumpur's city-centre circuit allows. Lavo and Lavo Gallery is an Asian-Western Fusion Lounge in Petaling Jaya. Located within the Golf and Country Resort premises at Menara Lien Hoe in Tropicana, the address is not the kind you stumble upon, it requires deliberate navigation, which self-selects the clientele before anyone has even been seated.

The two venues share management under EMP KL. Operating multiple formats under one group, each with a distinct spatial identity, is a strategy more common in Hong Kong or Singapore than in suburban Malaysia. In Tropicana, the same logic applies at a more local scale.

The Rooms Themselves

The distinction between Lavo and Lavo Gallery is not merely cosmetic. Lavo presents as a modern, artful, and deliberately funky dining room, the kind of interior that signals a menu with some editorial intention behind it, designed for guests who want the room itself to be part of the experience. Lavo Gallery, by contrast, operates as a classy underground space, which in the Malaysian context usually means a more intimate, lower-lit environment suited to longer, slower evenings. The two formats under one roof serve different moods and, likely, different menus, though the operational thread connecting them is consistent hospitality management rather than a single unified concept forced onto two incompatible spaces.

Across the region, this dual-format model has become increasingly common at properties with enough square footage to support it. The Planters at The Danna in Langkawi and The Dining Room at The Datai Langkawi both demonstrate how distinct spatial registers within a single property allow operators to serve guests across multiple occasions rather than optimising for one type of visit alone. At Lavo and Lavo Gallery, the same principle operates at a suburban restaurant level rather than a resort one.

Where Sourcing Fits Into the Tropicana Picture

Malaysian dining's relationship with ingredient sourcing has grown considerably more deliberate over the past decade. Restaurants like Dewakan in Kuala Lumpur have built international reputations on the explicit argument that Malaysia's native produce, its herbs, fermented condiments, wild greens, and heritage proteins, deserve the same treatment afforded to French or Japanese ingredients in fine-dining contexts. That conversation has gradually spread outward from the city centre into PJ's restaurant community.

The artful interior at Lavo suggests a kitchen with some investment in presentation and concept, which in the current Malaysian market typically correlates with sourcing choices that go beyond commodity suppliers. Venues operating in this register, funky, design-conscious, affiliated with a group known for EMP KL, tend to make sourcing decisions that reflect the room: local producers brought into a contemporary frame, or imported produce handled with enough care to justify the positioning. The broader shift that Auntie Gaik Lean's Old School Eatery in George Town represents at the traditional end, the argument that local ingredients cooked correctly are the point, not a compromise, has its counterpart at the contemporary end in restaurants like those in Lavo's comparable set.

What the management pedigree and interior character signal is that the kitchen is not operating at the value-casual tier. The EMP KL connection places it in a group that thinks about food with some seriousness, which in Malaysia's suburban dining context is a meaningful differentiator.

Petaling Jaya's Broader Dining Position

PJ's restaurant identity has shifted considerably in recent years. The suburb no longer functions purely as an overflow market for diners who cannot get reservations or afford prices in KL proper. A growing number of destination restaurants have chosen Tropicana and adjacent neighbourhoods specifically because the lower overhead supports more experimental or niche formats that could not sustain themselves in KLCC or Bangsar. This is a pattern seen in other Asian cities: as central-city rents compress margins, the interesting work migrates outward.

For reference, the price-tier spread across PJ's better restaurants currently runs from the accessible Peranakan cooking at venues like Bee See Heong at the more affordable end, up through mid-range contemporary formats, and into the four-dollar-sign tier occupied by tasting-menu operations. Lavo's design positioning, art-forward, funky, EMP-affiliated, places it in the mid-to-upper segment of that spectrum, though pricing is around US$25 per person.

Planning Your Visit

Lavo and Lavo Gallery sit within the Golf and Country Resort at Menara Lien Hoe, 8 Persiaran Tropicana, a resort-adjacent address that means parking is generally available and the surrounding environment is quieter than central KL. The Tropicana location makes this a logical destination for those already in the PJ corridor rather than a quick detour from the city. Given the dual-format setup, it is worth confirming in advance whether you intend to dine in Lavo's main room or the Gallery space, as the two experiences appear designed for different occasions. Reservations are recommended, and the venue is open daily from 12 PM, with closing times at 1 AM most days and 2 AM on Friday and Saturday.