Meet Chef Marina Mustafa Who Has Written 26 Cookbooks Since 2009 and Sold 140k Copies

When Malaysians think of local chefs, the award-winning flamboyant Chef Wan may immediately come to mind, but Marina Mustafa is also a legend in her own right on the Malaysian food scene.

If you love food or are into cooking, chances are that you’ve come across Marina in one way or another as the celebrity chef and prolific cookbook author is no stranger to exploring the vast and wonderful world of food, dipping her toes in virtually every aspect of the industry across several decades of experience. 

Working her way up as a chef and restaurateur

She has managed this without being classically trained in the culinary field, instead working in restaurants and venues such as the Burswood Convention Centre and Merlin Hotel during her time in Australia to gain experience, whilst juggling her student life.

She gained pleasure from cooking as her Australian friends enjoyed her dishes and she also simultaneously learned cooking western dishes from them. After graduating with a business degree from the Edith Cowan University in Perth, she had a stint as the Public Relations Officer of the Subang Airport Hotel before making cooking her full-time career by opening her own establishment, Café Diana.

Although opening her own café had been her dream, she closed it in 2006 after 16 years of operations. Marina explained “I started running a cooking school that focuses on kid’s cooking but work with clients unfortunately didn’t give me much opportunity to focus on a full-time business.”

The cooking school still runs to this day and she currently collaborates with The Culinary Studio to hold regular classes.

Cookbook career chronicles

In 2009, she turned to writing her first cookbook ‘Memorable Recipes for Malay Occasions’, which was published with photography, design, and editing done by her then 17 year old son. This has grown to a collection of 26 cookbooks, selling approximately 140,000 copies in total. Half of them are best sellers and three of her books won the French-based Gourmand International Cookbook Awards in 2017 and 2018.

According to Marina, “Research is the key to a good cookbook. Each cookbook is different, that is based on the cookbook’s concept. My first cookbook was self-published.

“Firstly, I decided on the book concept, do my research, test the recipes, conduct a photoshoot for the photography for the book, design the book layout, edit the book several times before sending it to the printer, and lastly, approach a distributor.

I was approached by Karangkraf –– which is also the home of the Malay daily Sinar Harian –– to publish several books and MPH publishers then asked me to publish English cookbooks. Seashore Publishing under the Popular bookstores also asked me to do 12 dual-language mini-cookbooks.”

She has worked for brands like Philips, McCormik, AirAsia, and KFC and is no stranger to our TV screens with shows like From Marina’s Kitchen.

In 2014, Marina was invited to represent Malaysia on an international level , cooking in front of the former president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow during an event at Ashgabat. Wow, her accomplishments are pretty much endless! People like her really make us wonder how they juggle it all.

Most recently, Marina has been appointed as the first ambassador of CookX Asia, an innovative and comprehensive food app where foodpreneurs can create, share, and even monetize their food business through pre-order features, sell eco-packs and learn how to cook through video tutorials and step-by-step recipes.

The app provides budding chefs an avenue to share their unique recipes and gain followers. Once Creator-Partners of CookX are comfortable they may monetize by either selling dishes or selling Eco-Packs, pre-measured ingredients used in the recipes.

For users, it's a good way to collate recipes from chefs you admire and for creators, maybe this app will help you monetize your passion for cooking.

Follow Marina on Facebook or download CookX Asia on the Play Store or App Store.