Dinner began just like any other multicourse gastronomic odyssey at a five-star hotel, with an assortment of adorable appetisers. These were followed by a menu of delicacies such as Phuket lobster and prawn linguine, elegantly presented in swirls of foam, sauces and sautés. But then the epicurean express swerved off the tracks. Things got goofy, but exactly where is tough to pinpoint. My notes taper off after the second course. Perhaps the marijuana cocktails should have served as a warning. The arrival of pot-paired gastronomy is the latest treat in Thailand, which legalised marijuana in June 2022 , allowing it to be smoked inside an individual’s residence and consumed in food at licensed restaurants. A ganja gold rush swept the capital Bangkok even before restrictions officially ended on what had been considered a most dangerous drug, on par with heroin. Trucks rolled through one of the world’s street food meccas offering jars of buds and joints. Dispensaries bloomed and the scent of cannabis swept through side streets. It was only a matter of time before some luxury brand jumped on the cannabis bandwagon. In February, The Slate, a glamorous and appropriately risqué resort in Phuket, hosted what was billed as the first five-star marijuana tasting menu in Thailand. What is it like for a tourist to smoke cannabis in green-lit Thailand? Chef Steven John’s “Bong Appetit” menu was named partly in tribute to the series on America’s Vice TV channel that gave cannabis cuisine the cooking-show treatment, featuring celebrity pot lovers such as funk legend George Clinton and rapper B-Real. The meal was a special preview of marijuana meals that will be served to 40 guests at Slate’s Rivet & Rebar restaurant on March 10 and 11. The resort’s Coqoon Spa will offer special treatments using CBD oil, derived from cannabis. John will also take his Bong Appetit fine-dining to Ko Lanta’s Pimilai Resort at the end of April, and to Koh Samui for a cannabis collaboration in late March. While ganja might be seen as a new gimmick in the gourmet world, “The food comes first,” John says. “It has to be delicious.” For his meals at The Slate, he uses CBD instead of THC (the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis), bowing to Thai law, in which many grey areas remain. Buying and smoking marijuana is legal, but extracting THC – used to make gummies, cookies and other edibles – remains forbidden. At the February dinner, John served a scrumptious array of seafood, meat and local produce. Linguine spirals were spiced by hemp pesto sauce. Not that the giggling diners could discern much after the first buzz. That came courtesy of a bowl of pre-rolled marijuana joints, served with cocktails, each topped with a floating pot leaf. John, a former finance worker, has become Thailand’s premier pot chef, partly by default. He is largely self-taught and began experimenting with marijuana menus years before legalisation. Tired of the financial world, the Thai-Swiss chef formed Empty Plates and began cooking off-grid, offering private dining extravaganzas in his converted condo in the Lad Phrao area of Bangkok. As his reputation grew, requests came for more provocative menus, including fare infused with pot. He adds that the future of marijuana menus is immense, likening cannabis gastronomy to fine dining with wine pairing. The trick, he says, is meticulous planning. Pot can easily derail dinners, as we found in Phuket. The key is moderation, and making sure low doses of THC are used in each dish. “We plan everything carefully,” he says. That includes factoring in the size and tolerance of guests. Low doses of THC spice each dish, keeping the cumulative impact tolerable. “We can always add in more THC, if the guest wants it.” John’s Slate guests can consume pot between courses in the form of high-quality bud and other cannabis products sold by companion company Elite Extract. Empty Plates isn’t the only culinary outfit pushing the envelope in Thailand. Akkee Thai Delicacies runs a Bangkok restaurant and dispensary. Two weeks after The Slate’s cannabis meal in February, Akkee hosted its own high table of pot dishes. This hints at the potential of marijuana in the Amsterdam of Asia. Pot shops have proliferated on the stretch of Sukhumvit Road popular with tourists, and are ubiquitous from Pai to Phuket. Minister of Tourism Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, whose Bhumjaithai Party pushed the legalisation, has said marijuana is the perfect pairing to Thailand’s massive medical tourism industry, and will boost Thailand’s reputation as The Land of Smiles. “This is the greatest thing to happen in Thailand in years,” says Tai Taveepanichpan, an “entrepotneur” in his 20s who runs several Four Twenty dispensaries selling marijuana. About 70 per cent of his customers are tourists. Many come straight from the airport, he says. “It’s huge.” Yet prospects for cannabis cuisine – the actual food – remain unclear, says Tim Butler, executive chef at Bangkok’s Eat Me restaurant and owner of Eightysix Cannabis. Controls on pot in food, he predicts, will remain as stringent as those on alcohol – Thailand still doesn’t allow craft brewing. In any case, he questions demand. “Where in the world is a restaurant doing cannabis cuisine that is not a gimmick? I don’t think you will see that in Thailand in a long while.”