Michelin has recently unveiled the first selection for the Michelin Guide Bangkok, which features a total of 98 restaurants. This selection highlights how the city embraces international dining without abandoning its own heritage and authentic cuisine – which draws millions of visitors worldwide.
Michael Ellis, international director in charge of the Michelin Guides, said, “We are proud to launch this first selection of the Michelin guide dedicated to Bangkok, highlighting the richness of the city’s gastronomy. Our inspectors were thrilled to find a local culinary scene with an amazing vibrancy, myriad new restaurants, an astonishing variety of wonderful street food, but also Thai cuisine served in different forms.”
Three restaurants obtain two stars in the Michelin Guide Bangkok 2018: Gaggan, where the chef-owner Gaggan Anand takes Indian cuisine to a level rarely seen, and one that has a truly unique signature. His artful dishes are original and creative, with a wonderful blend of textures, flavours and delicate spices.
Le Normandie, located in The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, also gains two stars. Opened in 1958, the restaurant offers a sophisticated French cuisine based on superb ingredients, refined techniques, and well executed combinations of flavours and textures. Also awarded two stars, Mezzaluna is perched on the 65th floor of the Lebua Hotel, and the chef and his team deliver European delights with Japanese precision in five- and seven-course set menus.
The first selection of the Michelin Guide Bangkok also award 14 restaurants one star, highlighting the quality of local cuisine, as seven of these one star restaurants offer Thai cuisine prepared by local Thai chefs, like Chim by Siam Wisdom, where the chef revisits traditional Thai recipes to create dishes that strike a balance between the old and the new, and between Thai and foreign influences; Bo.lan; Saneh Jaan, a restaurant offering Thai dishes which are a mix of classics and hard-to-find recipes like kaengranjuan, a hot and spicy soup.
Innovative modern Thai cuisine is also well represented in Bangkok with Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin, where the chef respects traditional Thai flavours and ingredients but transforms them to produce something truly creative and original.
Of particular interest, one street food vendor also obtains one star: Jay Fai, where the owner-chef insists on staying at the tiny open kitchen with her homemade charcoal stoves, continuing what her father started 70 years ago, making crab omelettes, crab curries and dry congee.
International cuisine is also recognised in the Michelin Guide Bangkok 2018 with establishments awarded one star such as Ginza Sushi ichi, a sushi restaurant where ingredients are delivered straight from markets in Tokyo every 24 hours, or Sühring, where brothers Mathias and Thomas Sühring deliver their very own style of modern German cooking that is sometimes playful, sometimes classic and always prepared with care.
L’Atelier de JoëlRobuchon, J’AIME by Jean-Michel Lorrain, Elements and Savelberg, both gain a star in this first selection, with these restaurants serving French contemporary cuisine.