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Bangkok Post

4 days ago

Stylish Italian all dandies will love at Sartoria
Food and fashion come together at Sartoria by Paolo Airaudo, the stylishly snazzy Italian fine dining restaurant on the 56th floor of The Empire building. A chef with six Michelin stars to his name, this is the Italian's first restaurant in Southeast Asia -- one with dazzling skyline views and a restaurant layout akin to a dressmaking studio. In Italian, sartoria translates to tailoring or tailor's shop in English. Upon entering the light-filled nook, guests will see different types of fresh pasta displayed behind a glass case the way a statement outfit would be, along with a fully-open kitchen similar to an atelier, so guests can see all 15 kitchen staff in action. Duomo-style tiles and white tablecloths are expected, but playful surprises, such as Mario figurines, imply the restaurant is anything but uptight.
On the food side, it's apparent the restaurant approaches its cooking the way a haute couturier creates masterpieces -- with emphasis on the finest materials and highest levels of precision. Sourcing the finest seasonal ingredients from around the world -- be it caviar, white asparagus to kinmedai fish -- their eight-course L'Opera Completa set menu showcases modern Italian cuisine with a subtle hint of Japanese and Asian influences. Think creamy tagliolini pasta topped with uni and parsley risotto the shade of grass green, delightfully dotted with juicy shrimp and heart-shaped leaves. Carb lovers, rejoice. All courses look dainty and too good to eat, but behind all that decorative precision, serious foodies will be pleased that the actual flavours all hit with flying marks too. Before passing out into food coma/nirvana, make sure to save room for the Darth Vader whiskey jelly from the petit four platter. Paolo's love for pop culture wraps up the meal on a playful note and adds a fun, modern dimension to the fine dining experience.
Romantic Latin American date night at Carito's
Another chic haunt by the Sarnies Group has opened shop in Sukhumvit 22. Sitting on the 2nd and 3rd floors of a completely revitalised shophouse, Carito's offers modern Latin American cuisine highlighted with locally-sourced ingredients. As can be expected with a name which first made its name for its beverages, you can also expect to find a solid offering of Latin American wines and sangria cocktails that boast every kind of base, even the less common orange wine. The sophisticated wine bar and counter dining lined with brown marble make this a much more upscale setting than you'd usually find at an upbeat Latin American restaurant (not that there are many in Bangkok to begin with). This is the sort of place you'd find a scion and their beau on a polished date night, nibbling on comfort snacks like pan de queso (cheese bread) and sharing a steak across immaculate white tableclothed seating.
This isn't just your usual steak and taco meal -- there's much more for your tastebuds to explore from the Amazon to the Andes. As a continent that knows what they're doing when it comes to corn, plantains, beans, seafood and grilled meats, try to get a bit of everything with orders of starter, main, side and dessert. Snacks like Argentinean empanadas, filled with soft smoked short-ribs, give a taste of how bold curry puffs are done over there. Four different cuts of dry-aged char-grilled steak served with a screw chilli are available here, but what's harder to find are their beef heart skewers or deliciously seared Atlantic cod that comes with a briny prawn velouté and baked clams. You don't usually see mashed yucca too, so don't miss that side for a more gummy alternative to mashed potatoes. To witness the wondrous shape-shifting versatility of corn, their Brazilian polenta ice cream showcases its many forms -- from corn cake to corn filling, corn mousse, caramel corn sauce and crispy corn topping. Covered with shaved parmesan, this creamy dessert sates your cravings for corn and cheese like nowhere else in Bangkok.
OG butter chicken from Daryaganj
There is no shortage of Indian restaurants in Bangkok, but if you want things as authentic as they are at source, Daryaganj is the place to go. Nestled inside Park Plaza Hotel in Sukhumvit 18, the casual but upscale North Indian restaurant is the very first branch to open outside of India. Back on the subcontinent in 2019, Daryaganj was founded by childhood friends Amit Bagga and Raghav Baggi, the grandson of Kundan Lal Jaggi, the man credited with inventing butter chicken in 1947. Nothing screams iconic North Indian dish more than this curry, as does the dal makhani (a creamy lentil and bean curry), which the late Laggi also created in 1947. Invented out of necessity, Kundan Lal Jaggi was about to close his restaurant in Delhi when a group of hungry guests arrived last minute. With only a few portions of tandoori chicken on hand, he added it to a gravy of fresh butter, tomatoes and spices in order to have enough food for all. It became an instant hit so Jaggi put the dish permanently on the menu -- and thus was the birth of butter chicken.
Despite a legacy this storied, the restaurant is not all retro and balances the ambiance with contemporary chicness. With brass accents, black and white photographs and graphic-print plates that could pass for a press release, the lamp-lit eatery brings a touch of elegance to these everyday comfort dishes. The butter chicken and dal makhani are a must, along with their smoky butter or garlic naan. Unbeknown to most, no cream is actually added to these dishes, as many modern restaurants resort to. Its richness comes from tomatoes which slowly soften from being slow-cooked overnight. There are no shortcuts to a truly flavourful butter chicken. There's a mastery of cooking with fire too, so you can expect their tandoor-kissed chicken or prawns grilled to luscious perfection. For a casual eatery, it feels exquisitely posh that waitstaff serve you like royalty by cutting up portions so you don't even have to divide the chicken or kulfi ice-cream yourself.