World-famous chefs are converging on Bangkok for an exciting food festival. Called The Epicurean Masters of the World (November 14 to 19), the event will bring together chefs with a combined total of 19 Michelin stars, including three-star chefs Antoine Westermann from Restaurant Buerehiesel in Strasbourg, Heinz Winkler (above left) of Residenz Heinz Winkler in Bavaria, Germany and Jean-Michel Lorain of La Cote Saint-Jacques in Burgundy. Other chefs include David Thompson of London's Nahm (the first Thai restaurant to receive a Michelin star) and Thai chef Ian Chalermkittichai (above centre) of Kittichai in New York.
Activities will take place in venues throughout the Dome at State Tower, with tastings of caviar, cheese, smoked salmon, wine, whisky and vintage cognac (not all together, obviously), cooking classes and special dinners. A gala dinner on November 16 includes dishes by Westermann (cold pea soup with Alsace pork bacon jelly; guinea fowl with foie gras, black truffles and sauteed mushrooms), Winkler (wild Tasmanian salmon with oscietra caviar sauce) and Anton Mosimann (goose liver and chicken parfait; marinated scallops with saffron, herbs and tomato). The gala dinner costs 21,500 baht ($4,000) a head.
Two days later is a dinner in the tower's Sirocco restaurant that includes skewers of scallops and black truffles, and spaghetti with oscietra caviar (cooked by Michelin three-star chef Gualtiero Marchesi), roasted black seabass with clams and mussels in potato puree by two-star chef Michel Rostang (above right) and a caramelised apple sorbet made by Sirocco executive pastry chef Otto Jurscha. The dinner costs 11,500 baht.