Norman Musa

Musa is a Malaysian Malay. He was raised by his parents in a kampung called Sungai Nyior in Butterworth. Following his secondary education, he gained a scholarship to study quantity surveying at the University of Portsmouth from 1994. After graduation in 1997, his first job as a quantity surveyor was in Bournemouth, Southern England before relocating to London in 1999. In 2003 he moved to Manchester, where he continued to practice as a quantity surveyor.

In 2006 he took a break as a quantity surveyor to plan, design and develop a restaurant with his partner at the time. The restaurant, Ning was located in the Northern Quarter and opened for trading in December 2006, focusing on Malaysian cuisine and Thai cuisine. Norman acted as Head Chef at the restaurant whilst also returning to his role as a quantity surveyor in 2007 once the restaurant was up and running. Once the restaurant business took off, he left his career in quantity surveying in 2009 to work full-time at Ning. A second Ning restaurant in York was open from 2012 to 2014.[1]

He has received the Hospitality Guild's Young Hall of Fame award[2] at a parliamentary reception at the House of Commons and was awarded runner-up in the Asian & Oriental Chef of the Year at the Asian Curry Awards 2013.[3]

In November 2014, the Kuala Lumpur Mayor's office made a press release to announce Musa's appointment as the Kuala Lumpur Food Ambassador for the European market.[4]

In April 2016, Musa was shortlisted as one of the seven Malaysian cooks who made it abroad by the Malaysian Newspaper, The Star.[4]

In March 2017 Musa was handed a five-year disqualification for employing illegal workers at Ning.[5] The disqualification follows an investigation by the Insolvency Service, which found that Musa failed to ensure the business completed relevant immigration checks on its employees, resulting in the employment of two illegal workers.[6]

In March 2018, Musa was offered to teach at Seasoned Cookery School Derbyshire which add up to the list of cookery schools in his profile.[7]

In May 2018, Musa was offered to run 5 day cooking demonstrations and masterclasses at one of the biggest Festival in Europe, the Tong Tong Fair ref https://tongtongfair.nl/food/ held in The Hague, The Netherlands. The festival was attended by more than 80,000 visitors and Musa was also commissioned to create a Malaysian inspired breakfast for the Mercure Hotel in The Hague to be served during the festival that runs for 12 days from 24 May until 3 June 2018.

On 25 June 2018, Musa was offered to teach at the Foodworks Cookery School in Cheltenham On 4 July 2018 Musa released his open letter statement on his social media and website to his followers in regard to the illegal workers incident and the consequences.[8]

On 22 January 2019, Musa was officially appointed as the Executive Chef for Wah Nam Hong Restaurant in Leidsenhage, The Netherlands.

Musa filmed his third cooking show 'East West Bake' in Cheshire, United Kingdom from 11 March 2019 until 17 March 2019. Musa co host the show with his mentor, Chef Brian Mellor. The show is for the Malaysian TV Channel 'Saluran Okey'.

On 18 March, Musa was invited to run cooking demonstration to promote Malaysian fruits at the Unesco Headquarters in Paris. The event was launched by the Deputy Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato Sri Dr Wan Azizah. Musa invited the Deputy Prime Minister to cook along with him during the event.

He is actively promoting Malaysian cuisine in The Netherlands by running cooking demonstrations and workshops.

In March 2019, Musa was announced by Holland-based Big Green Egg as one of the celebrity chefs to run cooking workshop at their annual Big Green Egg's Flavour Fair and this year taken place on Sunday, 16 June 2019 in Lisse, The Netherlands. His popular workshops were sold out few weeks before the event was even started. Video of the event is available for viewing from this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB0zEnBgSvM&feature=emb_logo

Norman was asked by his Dutch celebrity chef friend, Francis Kuijk to write the ‘Foreword’ for her second Dutch cookbook ‘Basisboek Indonesisch’, that was published in March 2019.

Article of Musa and his recipes were featured in the Malaysian's Her World Magazine April 2019 Issue.

His recipes for the new Dutch cookbook 'Magisch Maleisisch' were featured in the Elle Eten Magazine for the May 2019 issue.

Norman launched his Dutch cookbook 'Magisch Maleisich', the translation of Amazing Malaysian cookbook on 4 June 2019 at Keizer Culinair in Amsterdam. The book was published by Podium Uitgever, the Amsterdam-based publisher.

On 22 and 23 June 2019, Norman was invited by the Malaysian Embassy in The Hague to run cooking demonstrations for the Malaysian Food Fair.

On 24 July 2019 Norman's laksa dish was mentioned in the article of The Guardian, UK top newspaper written by Felicity Cloake. The article compared the laksa recipes amongst other Malaysian chefs. 'Where the recipes diverge, however, is in their use of dried spices. Malaysian chef Norman Musa uses sweeter aromatics such as star anise and cinnamon along with the coriander seeds and turmeric found in Tan's version, as well as that from Mandy Yin, the Kuala-Lumpur-born chef at my favourite laksa joint, north London's Sambal Shiok. In fact, Musa uses the most spices of all, also adding cumin, black peppercorns and cardamom to the paste – his laksa is delicious, more savoury and complex to my and my testers’ minds than some of the others, but doesn't quite hit the classic, comfortingly creamy notes we like so much in Yin's. For a less rich take, however, I'd highly recommend it.' - substract from the article. The full article is available from this link https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/jul/24/how-to-cook-the-perfect-laksa-recipe

His work in promoting Malaysian cuisine in the United Kingdom and Europe has made the Malaysian Ministry of Education to write an inspirational article about his career for Malay Language Standard 6 School Text book, for students of age 12 to read and the book is available for all the primary schools in Malaysia.

Two of his recipes from ‘Amazing Malaysian’ cookbook were selected by Josh Emett, the New Zealand-based celebrity chef, to be included in his cookbook ‘The Recipe’, the book comprises more than three hundred modern classic recipes from one hundred and fifty of the world's finest chefs and cooks. The book was published in May 2019.

His cooking show 'East West Bake', a 13-episode cooking show that was filmed in March 2019 with his mentor, Chef Brian Mellor as his co-host in Chester, United Kingdom was aired on Malaysian TV Okey, from 9 January 2020.

In February 2020, Norman filmed his fifth cooking show ‘Explore the Scent Holland’ for the Malaysian TV. This 13-episode show was filmed with his Dutch friends and celebrity chefs as his guest hosts, capturing the local attractions and Dutch cuisine, cooked by his guests and Malaysian cuisine cooked by him. The show was aired on the Malaysian TV and available for online live streaming from October 2020.

In May 2020, he teamed up with 7 other globally based Malaysian-born chefs to set up ‘Masters of Malaysian Cuisine’, a campaign to promote Malaysian food through live online cooking demonstrations in partnership with Tourism Malaysia and Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industries.

Norman introduced Malaysian Adabi's products to the Dutch market through Wah Nam Hong Supermarket. The Malaysian Week Event that was held from 25 September – 4 October 2020 and organised by Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industries Malaysia in The Hague was to mark the campaign to promote Malaysian fruits and products.

In October 2020, Norman with his Sydney-based chef colleague, Jackie M. and London based Nutritionist, Kerry Torrens launched the ‘S.E.A. Food Revolution’ online campaign and workshops, to inspire people cooking healthy South-east Asian dishes recommending healthy diet approach.

On 20 October 2020 Norman was invited to be the speaker for the online Webinar organised by Malaysia-based Taylor's University with the topic 'Future Chef: Developing Adaptability Skills'.

In December 2020, he was appointed as the Adjunct Senior Lecturer by Malaysian based Taylor's University. This 2-year contract commencing from 1 January 2021 will have him running online lectures and organise events for the students.