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Bangkok Post
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Bangkok Post
A trio of chefs served with your Restaurant War
Four episodes of the cooking competition The Restaurant War Thailand Season 2 are now streaming on Netflix. It's a battle among fiery street food cooks who are joining the competition not only to win the cash prize of 1 million baht but also to learn culinary know-how and techniques from leading chefs. With chef Willment Leong as the competition's headmaster, the 10-episode cooking contest also sees three top chefs serving as head trainer for each team. Let's get to know more about them. Chef Supamongkol "Art" Supapipat A former national swimmer, chef Art was the first to introduce the concept of "Chef's Table" to Thai diners. He opened Chef's Table by Chef Art on Ekkamai Soi 10. The restaurant serves fine-dining French cuisine. Chef Art is also one of the judges for Top Chef Thailand. He is the head trainer for Team Orange in The Restaurant War Thailand Season 2. Chef Thitid "Ton" Tassanakajohn Executive chef and owner of Le Du, Baan, Nusara and Mayrai among others, chef Ton specialises in Thai cuisine, turning street food into fine dining. His restaurant Nusara is currently No.6 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list while Le Du is ranked 20. Chef Ton is the head trainer for Team Green in The Restaurant War Thailand Season 2 which has so far won two consecutive team challenges. He is also the head trainer behind the winning team on The Restaurant War Thailand Season 1. Chef Pichaya "Pam" Soontornyanakij The World's Best Female Chef 2025 and Asia's Best Female Chef 2024, chef Pam is the first Asian and Thai to receive the World's Best Female Chef status. She also earned Michelin star and "Opening of the Year" awards from the Michelin Guide. Also a television personality, chef Pam is the first and only Thai female who achieve 3-knife status at the World's Best Chef Awards. Chef Pam is also behind the success of her restaurant Potong, the No.13 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list this year.
Hindustan Times
27-06-2025
- Hindustan Times
Rude Food by Vir Sanghvi: Why Bangkok is the world's food capital
Which city do you think has the largest number of the world's best restaurants? If you answered London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong or New York, you would be completely wrong. Gaggan Anand's eponymous restaurant came in sixth on the World's 50 Best list of restaurants. The correct answer is Bangkok, which has six of the 50 Best Restaurants in the World according to the organisation that makes these lists every year. The same organisation does a list of the 50 Best Restaurants in Asia, and there too, the number one restaurant was in Bangkok: Our very own Gaggan Anand. Michelin has not been very far behind. Bangkok now has the world's first Thai restaurant with three Michelin stars and a clutch of two-star restaurants, including the excellent Côte by Mauro Colagreco. Michelin has yet to come to India, but the 50 Best Restaurants in the World list does claim to cover India. And last week, when they announced the list, it was a little odd to find that not one restaurant in all of India made it to the list. So Bangkok: 6 vs India: 0. Not fair, is it? Chef Ton runs Nusara and Le Du in Bangkok. Both made it to The World's 50 Best Restaurants list. But that's not the only distinction Bangkok has won in the last few months. The World's 50 Best, the organisation that rates restaurants, also rates the best hotels. And on the current list, the number one, and therefore the best hotel in the world, is the Capella on the Chao Phraya River, another triumph for Bangkok. So, has Bangkok, which most of us know well and regard a reasonably priced holiday destination that is not too far away, suddenly become much more: The food and hospitality capital of the world? It sure as hell looks like it. Let's start with the World's 50 Best Restaurants, because that announcement was the most recent. Though Gaggan Anand has the reigning number one restaurant in Asia, I wondered how he would fare on the more significant international list. The announcement ceremony was in Torino, and just before he left for Italy, Gaggan came over to the brand new Aman where I was staying (I will do a separate piece on how the Aman group created niche super-luxury hospitality later). We spent three hours chatting and I was surprised by his quiet confidence. He knew he would be in the Top Ten, but what intrigued me was how confident he was about Bangkok's prospects. Capella, along the Chao Phraya River, topped the global hotel list. At first, I was a little disbelieving, because all the restaurants he was sure would make it were owned by his friends: Chef Ton who runs Nusara and Le Du, Chef Pam of Potong, and the Suhring twins who shine at their eponymous restaurant where Gaggan is a partner. As Sorn is the only Thai restaurant with three Michelin stars, Gaggan was sure it would also be high up on the list. (He was sort of right: Sorn came in at 17, but was way behind Gaggan and behind Pam's Potong as well.) Six restaurants? I told Gaggan he was nuts until I woke up two days later and saw the list. Gaggan had been absolutely right. Ton got both his restaurants on the list, and 50 Best rated Nusara higher than Le Du. That's the opposite of how Michelin sees it, but I think 50 Best got it right. The 50 Best Restaurants list can be controversial because it can be gamed by restaurants willing to spend money on agents and agencies that handle the so-called influencers who constitute many of the 1,100 voters who are the electorate for the list. As the New York Times noted sneeringly: 'Unlike lists that are reported by publications including The New York Times and Le Monde, or inspected anonymously by an independent entity like the Michelin Guide, the World's 50 Best list allows its 1,100 voters to accept free meals and other perks. The voters are supposed to remain anonymous, but many of the 'gastronomic experts' are chefs, food writers and public-relations professionals who are well known in the food world.' Côte, located at the Capella hotel, has two Michelin stars, and is gunning for a third. Yet, what nobody can deny is that the list makes a huge difference to the commercial performance of restaurants abroad, which is why so many of the world's top chefs attend the ceremony and long to get on to the list. As for manipulation, it's not always as easy as is often suggested. I know Indian restaurants that have spent lakhs trying to get on with no success; they have to be content with the lesser Asia list. On the other hand, while a place on the list can improve profitability abroad (in Bangkok, for instance) it makes no commercial difference to restaurants in India and remains a photo-op and ego trip for our restaurateurs. Not all great Bangkok restaurants made it to the list. I had dinner at Côte, the restaurant run by Davide Garavaglia for his boss, Mauro Colagreco. Mauro is one of the world's greatest chefs and it is to his credit that he has given Davide a free hand. For instance, Mauro's signature pigeon dish is suitably tweaked, and Davide creates big flavours while preserving the delicate nature of each dish. There is no printed menu. Davide customises the meal for each guest depending on their preferences and what ingredients are available that day. Côte has two Michelin stars, and now that Michelin has done its duty and given three stars to a Thai restaurant, Côte is finally in the running for a third star (with Suhring as the other European contender.) Côte missed out on 50 Best, but the hotel it is located in, Capella, topped the global hotel list. Forget about the enormity of the global achievement, but just in Bangkok terms, this is a huge coup. When the hotel opened, it was seen as the little brother to its neighbour the new Four Seasons, and further down, along the river, was the legendary The Oriental. It has now swept past them, surprising everyone in Bangkok. Chef Pam's Potong ranked 13th on the World's 50 Best list. I spent three days there and could see why it was voted the world's best hotel. It's not huge (around 100 rooms) so service is warm, efficient and personalised. The food is very good (compared to both the Oriental and the Four Seasons, certainly) and includes the Côte experience as well as a casual Thai restaurant that does non-five-star-hotel food. The rooms are huge and elegant and every one of them has a view of the river. It more than deserves its success. As I guess does Bangkok. And here's the irony. Because Chinese tourists have stopped coming, Bangkok's hospitality scene has suffered. You can get amazing deals at hotels, restaurants are never full and even as it gets so much global acclaim, Bangkok has never been better value for luxury. From HT Brunch, June 28, 2025 Follow us on
Time Out
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Restaurants in Bangkok on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 list
What is it?: Silom's Le Du raised eyebrows in 2023 as the number one restaurant in Asia. And while Gaggan Anand may have snatched the gold medal from them this year, they still hold a respectable number 20, the second restaurant run by Chef Thitid 'Ton' Tassanakajohn to make the list this year. Why it's loved: If Chef Ton's Nusara is a look back in time to his grandparents' day, Le Du is his more modern approach. The name is a bit of a key. Sure, it's a Thai word (reudu meaning 'season'), but it's spelled en français, and this was one of the first fine dining restaurants in Bangkok to take part in the international trend of local wisdom plus modernist technique. Seafood, in particular, is given priority, and expect dishes made with top-tier crab, squid, and grouper, and river prawn remains the one constant on the menu, served with brown rice risotto.
CNN
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Asia's 50 best restaurants for 2025 revealed
8. La Cime, Osaka: The only Osaka establishment in the top 50 list, La Cime, located in the heart of the city, serves French cuisine that pays homage to traditional Japanese ingredients. Courtesy The World's 50 Best 6. Nusara, Bangkok: With stunning views over Wat Pho, a Buddhist temple complex in Bangkok, Nusara dishes out what chef Thitid "Ton" Tassanakajohn calls "colorful Thai cuisine" -- his interpretation of Thai cuisine with a modern twist. Courtesy The World's 50 Best
