Curious about Bangkok

A digest of fine dining through Thailand's capital

NB: I started writing this post in mid-December until I boarded my flight to Chiang Mai. I then got lost in the holiday madness after returning to Italy. I picked this up after catching my breath, well over month later. Pardon the odd timelines! This is a long read in case you’d like a distraction, so grab a beverage or snack for the ride!

@curiousappetite

Coral Sisk • Curious Appetite®️ on Instagram: "Traded Tuscan ri…

I’m writing this a little woozy, holed up in the BKK airport with a mini bout of traveler’s food poisoning—birds chirping somewhere above the air ducts, mildly dehydrated, and starting with a dose of reality. I’m headed to Chiang Mai after a whirlwind week in Bangkok filled with eating, drinking, exploring, and meeting incredible people.

This post will focus on an intense tour of fine dining establishments I visited around Bangkok. I’m woozy because on my last day I let my guard down, maybe raw produce washed in tap water? Not from any of the places mentioned here, of course!

So if you plan on visiting (especially if you’re a fellow American with basically an inexperienced, sterile digestive system) avoid foods that may have been washed with the local tap water and ice from markets or street vendors.

Most restaurants, cafes and bars will serve factory-made ice from filtered water, so you don’t have to worry about skipping a nice cocktail or iced teas & coffees.

So… do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Let’s start with the bad: my current iffy state. Or perhaps I got a little too antsy for a salad. Or maybe I’ve been in Italy too long to be able to handle spice. Who knows.

But thankfully I found plenty of pharmacies in Bangkok and got an OTC to sort me out in time for khao soi (a wonderful curry) in Chiang Mai!

The good news? I loved Bangkok more than I ever imagined. The irony is I never was particularly interested in Thailand. I thought I would have lived my whole life never visiting.

I thought of Thailand as a place my granola classmates went to for backpacking trips “to find themselves” after graduating or when in life’s limbo. Or I’d see people go only to brag about cheap street food and massages.

Although the street food was really, really good. 📍Tagged on the grid

As a result, I was turned off from visiting. I dismissed Thailand as overrated.

Not only was I never that fussed about traveling to Thailand, it was always my least favorite Asian food outing when I lived in Seattle. I thought my first trip to Asia would have been to Vietnam or China to be totally transparent.

So when I received an opportunity for a dining-focused industry trip, I was intrigued. The line-up (more below) was impossible to say no to.

I went in with about zero expectations. In fact, I was planning on taking a vow of silence (ha!) to learn and listen with my serious work hat on. Navigating spice as need be. Hoping I wouldn’t get bitten by too many mosquitos or get hit in traffic.

I thought maybe the real food would have started with my second leg of the trip I planned independently in Northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai, which is lauded for its unique culinary repertoire. Oh my, how I must eat my words!

Although my anxiety about bunched cords was thoroughly tested here

Strangely I am so glad I had this ambivalence towards Thailand as I was really blown away beyond expectations (probably as I had none!).

It was an incredible adventure I am lacking the words to describe succinctly. The days spent opened my mind up in ways I never dreamed would have been possible.

Living in Italy you start to feel like the world revolves around European travel in some way. We have so many visitors during high season months to the point it feels crushing. UNESCO even crowned Italian cuisine with its special seal of cultural heritage status. (That’s a whole other post!)

To give you some scale, Italy is smaller than the size of California and is said to have nearly 70 million visitors annually. Thailand, about 2x the size of Florida has less than 35 million visitors annually.

Still, Thailand is one of the most visited countries in the world! But as someone who lives in Italy, I felt like the tourism wasn’t at “mass” levels where I was in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. It had a laid back, relaxed and manageable feel to it. Even in December, a month considered apart of its “high season.”

There is so much more of the world to see and I am starting to resent this sort of Eurocentrism in the travel and culinary world. It feels unfair in some way.

I work in culinary tourism in Italy, so it would behoove me to discourage people from visiting. I just wish we traveled with a balanced spread of curiosity!

Also my travels help me see Italian cuisine with new lenses every time I return.

Now that I’ve rambled a bit, you might be curious about the food in Bangkok I keep going on about. This trip was mostly fine dining focused, with a healthy mix of street food and markets. (And maybe a few or 5 massages, because did you really go to Thailand if you didn’t come back as putty?)

I did indeed enjoy massages, mango sticky rice and all the coconut water

I know a lot of people assign reasons to visit Thailand with street food, but I really think we should question why we categorize certain destinations with “cheap” eating. And why other destinations like France get all the fancy white table cloth glory.

I have mixed feelings about the world of fine dining. I feel we need to maintain a culinary world where the honest, homey places can flourish while building a challenging contemporary arena for creativity.

Fine dining cannot, and should not exist, without the recipes of our aunties, uncles and grandma’s still being honored either at a street food kiosk or in a trattoria-like tavern. And the sad reality is, a lot of nonna style eateries (at least in Italy) are dying out. Perhaps because not enough of the younger generations are carrying the baton.

I’m seeing more of them with culinary talent being pulled into the fine dining arena. Maybe where the gains are more lucrative?

Unless you’re someone like Jay Fai in Bangkok making 40eu crab omelettes, what incentive is there to run a labor-intensive volume restaurant or street food stall?

As one of my moniker’s “many things can be true at the same time”, I believe in the importance of supporting fine, modern and contemporary dining.

When people write it off, as smears and fluff, I feel they are making a misplaced generalization.

I think its f-ing amazing that as humans we need to eat to survive. And have created an art form out of a means for survival!

As someone who lives in a preserved Renaissance village and walk amongst centuries of history every single day- I think a lot about the centuries baked into my surroundings. (Hence why I’m into giving food tours;)

I often wonder what banquets were like in such and such palace now transformed into a viral tourist trap. Often wishing I could be transported there centuries ago as a fly on the wall. I wish I could witness the kind of elaborate contests that went on to yield techniques and dishes we still revel in today.

I am in the city that is said to have invented gelato. Do people stop and ask themselves what “eggs Florentine” mean?! It’s said to have to do with Renaissance Queen Caterina de’ Medici demanding spinach on everything!

Fine dining has existed since the start of human civilization. Perhaps not in the modern, restaurant setting we know today. It’s existed in the sense that humans have always—in some fashion—used food to convey sophistication and hierarchy.

I recognized there is a big dark heart of fine dining far from perfect and myriad dysfunctions lurking behind the curtains.

I could continue, but I hope by now you understand my argument for contemporary fine dining. So to the people who brush off these places, perhaps your next outing could be an opportunity to reflect a little deeper. Paradoxically beyond just the food.

Normally a post like this would follow a normal trajectory. Giving a short intro about how much Bangkok’s food scene blew me away and how it should have been on my radar all along. Then list off the restaurants on the circuit to be your sort of listicle.

But until AI totally takes over our attention spans, I’ll be writing spirals and detours. Writing from the heart is something AI can’t replace and I hope we continue to value.

Now I’ve taken up enough of your time, here is where I ate in Bangkok and what I found to be special.

Starting with GAGGAN

a taste of Gaggan

Gaggan was the highlighted restaurant of the giro dei stellati (of the stars). Worth knowing Kolkata-born chef Gaggan Aand (and his earnest team (ciao Fabio and Rahul!) took the title of Asia’s #1 restaurant last year, shines a Michelin star, and was featured on Chef’s Table (Season 2, 2017).

TLDR: Dining at Gaggan is undoubtedly fun. It’s a vibe. Chef was a former drummer and it shows! A seat here (only 15) has to be one of the most fun dinner parties you’ll ever go to in the Michelin and 50Best world. But I can see how it’s not for everyone. Here’s my video review to see it in motion.

When I went, the menu was divided into 4 acts, by countries (India, Thailand and Japan) that inspired the menu and communal cooking techniques (i.e. steamed to fried). It’s so cliche to say every act told a story, but it did. Years of the team’s combined experience, diverse backgrounds, cultural riddles and historic culinary metaphor culminated in each course.

What makes it fun is Gaggan’s love for music as a former musician. As someone who grew up in seminal music cities like Memphis and Seattle, the musical curation pulled at my nostalgia strings. I think one would need to have a baseline appreciation for real music.

Then there is the engagement with the audience the team puts on. I totally appreciated the energy here as someone who does food tours. I was wondering, how can they have the stamina to cook all day and put on a guided experience?! I might want some of those drugs lol.

What struck me the most, were the conversations challenging us to think about what was on our plates (i.e. Gaggan called us out during the Japan act on our favorite sushi orders being salmon and tuna heavy in relation to seafood sustainability “no wonder we’re running out- you motherf***ers keep demanding it!”). It left such a mark that at my next sushi outing, I intentionally omitted salmon and anything tuna.

Above all- it was the ability their food had in unlocking memories.

I had heard a great deal about Gaggan, mostly on being a (celebrity) chef with a rebel edge and challenging the status quo. At first I thought “yeah isn’t that every chef’s MO?” So again, I went in with very little expectation.

It was hard not to be charmed by what they have built and dazzled by the sheer intentionality of it all.

As someone living in a place like Italy, I’m a sucker for organization and seamlessness (since lacking here!). It is incredibly apparent all that goes into these culinary musical “cooksicles.”

We were sat to a 20+ course tasting menu, in a sort of omakase-style with intentionally sourced ingredients built into little pandora boxes.

I could tell you the dishes everyone on the internet waxes on about. Or I can tell you about the little aboo gohbi cookie that took me back to my late teen/early adult years.

Without digressing into too too many extraneous details, I was a vegetarian for most of my eating life (until I moved to Italy).

Once I discovered Indian food to be such a vegetarian-friendly cuisine, my curiosity for cooking soon followed suite.

Before, I was a witness to cooking: watching the matriarchs in my Persian family cook or my mother. I think I was in my teens when I started getting nosy and in my mother’s way in the kitchen asking too many questions.

When I was old enough to be trusted with a stove, I started studying recipes from the library. And it started with Indian dishes like aloo gobhi, saag and palak curries.

Seattle is a city full of diaspora communities (which means all sorts of well-stocked international grocers) so it was relatively easy to find the majority of ingredients needed.

Strangely, experiencing Gaggan brought me back to the late 90’s/early 2000’s era of mixed tapes I’d get lost in on my trusty walkman while attempting a curry or trying to survive my painter parents blasting Tool in their art studio.

When I started to learn, I was humbled by how much work went into the Indian recipes I attempted since it required careful blooming and frying of spices, roots, garlic, ginger and onion with calculated ingredient layering.

When I bit into the aboo gohbi cookie, I was brought back to a phase I’d forgotten.

The cardamon saffron bread and butter also blew my mind: there were textural plays to this fluffy cloud-like cake bite. While leaving behind buttery grease on your fingers reminding me of sweet roti breads.

Clearly, my amateur palate pales tremendously in comparison to anyone who is either an expert, or has either spent time in or are from India with lived experience and family food memories.

I asked one of the fellow diners from Mumbai to share her impressions of Gaggan. I smiled while reading Roshni’s reply describing her reaction of the baked goat (mutton) ribs with green chillies. “My grandma loved cooking and eating mutton, and its texture and flavours—and that distinctive green chilli spice—took me straight back to her kitchen and our family’s weekend lunch table. I was also very amused by cracking the clay shell open with a hammer. It definitely made me feel like a kid again, because the flavour of the dish was so deeply rooted in my childhood.”

For me, part of what makes food good is its capacity to unlock memory and emotion. Familiar flavors are a sort of love language and when food can remind you of your childhood- it’s really achieved something special in my opinion.

I lived in San Francisco for a few years, and one of my favorite spots was Indian Paradox. It sadly closed during the pandemic (sorry!).

It was opened by a former engineer-turned sommelier Kavitha Raghavan who passionately ran this neighborhood bistro to challenge the (flawed!) assumption that Indian food was too complicated to pair with wine.

And I wonder if she ever made it to Gaggan because the wine program and the team who runs it is nothing short of spectacular.

Gastronomic natural and biodynamic wine from Austria and Eastern Europe have notable representation here (hello, high acid/mouthwatering wines!).

Currently at time of writing, a seat at Gaggan will set you back about $500USD per person. This includes wine pairings, tax and gratuity.

Personally, I think it is well worth it for a few reasons. First, dining out around the US is super expensive and rarely worth it. Seatings are timed like a race so tables can turn quickly even when you are shelling out hundreds of dollars. Service is contrived, food quality is hit or miss, fun usually lacking, wines are overpriced and tip is 20-30%. I’m roping in the US since that’s where I’m from and a lot of my audience is in.

Second, high quality wine pairings are included at Gaggan as well as tip and tax. And Third (but not last)— and sorry for sounding advertorial here but: it’s more than a meal it really is a sort of culinary performance spanning hours.

I dine out quite a bit for my line of work (and for fun;). From hole in the walls to Michelin star establishments when I can, like Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence. And I still remember nearly every act from Gaggan despite a couple months having passed.

Here’s a quick rundown of other notable fine dining restaurants we visited in Bangkok, I suggest you to save should you ever visit and curious for a splurge.

NUSARA (my video review HERE)

Overlooking Wat Pho— Bangkok’s most important temples— is a temple of its own run by Chef Ton and his brother Somm Tam. Nusara is dedicated to their grandmother’s recipes. But of course reimagined for a 1-star Michelin setting.

I’m no expert in Thai food, but as an outsider I felt hit all the marks of intriguing dishes, service and atmosphere. There were some familiar flavors like coconut fish soup and then some new experiences like sour guava in curry. I felt their intention towards hospitality and designing the space were rather pristine.

POTONG

Super soulful to be in a space like this in Chinatown, first it’s a rare surviving example of Sino-Portuguese architecture. The 5-story space was originally a Chinese apothecary Chef Pam inherited from her grandparents.

Second, Potong explores traditional Chinese flavors via Thai fine dining. Highlights also included the no-abv pairings which drew on teas and kombuchas. They also have a stellar bar worth the stop.

SUHRING (My video review HERE.)

I never thought I’d have European fine dining in essentially a jungle. This 3-star destination is helmed by twin brothers honoring their German family recipes, yes in Bangkok! When we went, the place was packed at Sunday lunch with well-heeled Bangkokians and visitors from neighboring cities/countries.

More casual, whimsical picks

Ms. Maria and Mr.Singh

A fictional love story between Mexican and Indian food. Video review HERE.

E-San by Gaggan

A cheerful eatery with fun North Eastern Thai-style dishes with a Japanese Izakaya bent where spicy, sour, chili, lime and fermented fish sauce intersect. Didn’t take any photos as my phone died, but worth a mention.

Also hit up a couple 50Best bars on this DIY cocktail crawl:

Bar Us- Fun menu playing fusing ingredients like miso, fig leaf and umeshu into classics like negronis and boulevardier with an underground listening bar vibe. Very attentive service.

Vesper- Laid-back atmosphere but with class, and the martini wasn’t shabby. Long wait, so be sure to book or show up early.

Other bars I checked out: Alone Together Bar (was a hop skip from my hotel Public House in Sukhumvit), Nuss Bar(at Nusara), Nobu rooftop (the views!) and Bar Sathorn (loved how they played with local ingredients like Thai rum, fruits like salak, mango, lemongrass and Thai honey)

And I enjoyed coffee here: Ceresia Coffee Roasters, PAGA microroastery and MTCH for matcha.

I’ll leave this post here, I respect I’ve taken up enough of your reading time and hope you enjoyed.

I hope that if you haven’t been to Bangkok, you will go. And if you have been, to share your qs, experiences and impressions of its dining scene (beyond street food).

Now curiously obsessed with Thailand,

Coral