It’s a Thai food revolution: Bangkok chefs get funky

 To Thai food purists, ingredients like fennel, bergamot and beetroot might veer slightly left of field of convention. Chef ‘Fae’ Rungthiwa Chummongkhon at the Waldorf Astoria Bangkok’s Front Room seems to be relishing these contrasts in tastes. Her interpretations of Nordic-Thai cuisine include a beef tartar-inspired dish, added with pickled papaya and northern Thai spices.

“The food concept that I present at Front Room is something new,” says the chef de cuisine who defined her culinary repertoire at Michelin-starred restaurants like Frederikshoj in Denmark and La Belle Epoque in Germany. So while not totally sitting in the category of Thai food, the menu at Front Room is best described as a modern version of Scandinavian cuisine with flavourful taste from (mostly) Thai ingredients. However, chef Chummongkhon feels there are inherent similarities between Nordic and Thai cooking.

“In Scandinavia, pickling methods preserve vegetables for longer periods. In Thailand, for many centuries, pickling is used to preserve food as well,” she explains.

Over at Nahm, which was awarded a Michelin star last year, chef Pim Techamuanvivit takes a middle-way approach. She describes her take on Nahm’s cuisine as a “showcase of the best of Thai cuisine” – from the cooking techniques to the best local ingredients. “What I try to do instead is to create a balanced menu that has a good balance of some strongly flavoured dishes, some funky dishes, and also some on the milder, less-spicy side so that the guests have choices and they can compose their meal to their taste,” explains Techamuanvivit, who divides her time each month between Bangkok and San Francisco (where she also operates the one Michelin star Kin Khao).