Secret Recipe Brand Guidelines: A 1997 SS2 Cake Café That Grew Into a Franchise Chain

One café in a Petaling Jaya suburb.

Secret Recipe opened its first café in 1997 in SS2, a suburb of Petaling Jaya in Selangor, Malaysia. The Star reported in June 2011 that the founder, Steven Sim, set up the business together with three nephews who were trained bakers, and that it was self-funded. Sim told the newspaper he had seen “a distinct lack of casual dining cafes in Malaysia,” and that at first the founders “would be very happy” simply to build a network of outlets at home. INTHEBLACK, the magazine of CPA Australia, described the same gap in September 2024: a lifestyle café where customers could have cakes and coffee in a comfortable setting.

The name has its own story. Patrick Sim, now the managing director, told Philstar.com in March 2024 that the name came to the founder in a dream, after he had struggled to think of one.

Growth came quickly through company-owned cafés and franchising. By June 2011, The Star reported, there were 270 Secret Recipe restaurants with more than 3,500 employees in eight countries: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, China, Brunei and Australia. In Malaysia the company then owned 50 outlets, while franchisees operated another 140.

China was a major early market. Inside Retail Asia reported in February 2014 that Secret Recipe had entered China in 2007 and had more than 50 outlets there. In the same report it said that the Chinese conglomerate Fosun Group had acquired a minority stake in the Malaysian group. Not every market lasted: Vulcan Post reported in March 2023 that the chain entered Australia in 2010 and withdrew in 2013.

The company trades as Secret Recipe Cakes & Café, and the group also runs a second brand, Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart, according to Vulcan Post and INTHEBLACK.

Cakes first, then a full café menu.

Cakes are the centre of the business. The company describes its range as gourmet cakes, and Vulcan Post reported in 2023 that cakes remained “a driving force behind the brand,” with Red Velvet and Sweet Potato then newly added to its Platinum Collection. Patrick Sim singled out the chain’s cheesecakes, in flavours built on different fruits and cheeses, in his 2024 interview with Philstar.com.

The menu grew well beyond cake. The Star described the format in 2011 as a casual-dining café serving appetisers, pasta, fusion food, cakes, baked desserts, ice cream and drinks. When the chain opened in Manila in 2024, Philstar.com listed Malaysian dishes such as laksa and beef rendang on the menu, adjusted to be less spicy for local diners, alongside a burnt cheesecake recommended by the local operator.

Franchising is the main engine. INTHEBLACK reported in September 2024 that franchisees ran about half of the roughly 380 Malaysian stores and all of the international outlets. Vulcan Post reported in 2023 that the chain worked with close to 100 franchise partners. Abroad, local partners run the cafés: in the Philippines, the chain is managed by The Bistro Group, which opened the first Philippine Secret Recipe at One Ayala Mall in Makati City on 1 March 2024, Philstar.com reported. That café had about 240 square metres of floor space and 90 seats. The Bistro Group’s chief operating officer told Philstar.com that Secret Recipe was the group’s first restaurant concept offering Asian-Western cuisine, and that its Malaysian recipes were kept largely unchanged for the Philippine menu.

The brand has also reached customers through partnerships. INTHEBLACK reported that Secret Recipe had worked with the snack brand Lay’s and with Universal Music Malaysia on food and promotional campaigns, and that it had built up a presence on TikTok and other social platforms. Vulcan Post noted that the chain sells online through its own membership app and website as well as through e-commerce platforms.

Malaysia’s café and bakery chains.

Malaysian and Singaporean food chains tend to tell their story through the shop itself. Kopitiam chains present a coffee-shop past inside modern premises: Ya Kun Kaya Toast puts the same posters about its old stall in every outlet, according to a case study by the World Intellectual Property Organization, while Killiney Kopitiam still trades from the shophouse where its predecessor opened in 1919. Bakery, cake and bubble-tea chains often lean instead on bright counters, packaged goods and the look of the cup, box or bag a customer carries away.

Menus are written dish by dish and drink by drink. Kaya toast, soft-boiled eggs, laksa and nasi lemak appear under their everyday names, and coffee and tea orders often keep the local shorthand of the kopitiam, such as kopi O or teh C, which some chains explain on their own websites for newcomers.

Store networks are something the companies publish themselves. Websites list outlets at home and abroad, often in malls, food courts and airport terminals, and franchise pages set out what a partner receives: the trade name, trademarks, training and support. Counts change quickly, so this guide gives each one with the date and source it comes from.

Ownership is described plainly. Some chains remain family businesses passed to a second generation; others belong to listed groups or larger food companies, or have changed hands as their franchise networks grew. Corporate pages on founders, owners and franchise partners are where each company sets out its own account, and this guide marks clearly which facts rest only on that account.

A crimson script and a second generation.

The visual identity is simple and long-lived. Writing in Vulcan Post in March 2023, a reporter described the logo as a familiar crimson colour with a swirly script. The same report said the chain had revamped its outlets with a more modern look to appeal to diners looking for cafés to photograph, and INTHEBLACK reported in 2024 that stores were being refurbished under the current management.

Leadership has passed to a second generation of the family. Patrick Sim joined the company in 2013 as a cost control manager and became managing director in December 2022, Vulcan Post reported; INTHEBLACK, which profiled him in 2024, said he had previously worked as an accountant in Malaysia and that about ten family members work in the business. Philstar.com described Secret Recipe in 2024 as a family-owned franchise.

The store count has kept rising. In January 2023 the chain opened its 350th Malaysian outlet, at 1 Utama, Vulcan Post reported. Philstar.com gave a figure of 365 branches in Malaysia in March 2024, and as of September 2024 INTHEBLACK reported about 380 Malaysian stores, about 150 outlets abroad and about 3,400 employees. The company’s website, as of November 2026, lists more than 380 cafés across Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, the Maldives and Bangladesh.

For a design guide, Secret Recipe shows how a single product category — the slice of cake — can carry a whole café chain, with one script mark repeated across hundreds of franchised shops. Compare OLDTOWN White Coffee, another Malaysian café chain, and PappaRich, a Malaysian restaurant brand that also grew through franchising. For this guide we use crimson, cocoa and a cream-cheese white with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Secret Recipe’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.