What will this year’s dinner be like?
I don’t want to repeat what we did last year, but I would like to recapture what I think made it successful—the fun factor I heard a lot about. We’ll have a course served on lollipops and fresh truffles sliced tableside.
Does planning start with the wines first?
Definitely. We tasted the wines, put them in a nice order and then thought of two different courses that would showcase each and make sense in a larger menu format. We’ve got some really fantastic French wines, starting with Champagne, moving onto a Sancerre, then a Chablis, three back-to-back really nice Bordeauxs (two Saint-Emillions and a Pauillac) and lastly a Sauternes.
There are some unusual ingredients on the menu; are there any ingredients or courses you’re especially excited about?
We’re bringing in some skate [fish in the ray family] from France and we’re doing it in a traditional flavor pairing of brown butter, capers, lemon and parsley. But we’ve really tweaked it and several of the flavors are presented as gels. And then we make a brown butter powder, and bridge it all with cauliflower in the form of custard.
What’s the hardest thing about doing a 14-course dinner?
The hardest thing is always changing gears. It’s a lot of choreography, planning ahead and knowing exactly who’s going to be doing what and when, and being able to express your vision to a bigger team.
What’s your personal cooking philosophy?
In general, I enjoy eliciting emotions from guests. I enjoy having them have to do things themselves, like picking up herbs and getting tactile.
What do you think about the Bangkok food scene right now?
Obviously, any openings that are outside the norm help to drive Bangkok forward. Seeing the nose-to-tail movement start to come to Bangkok is a good sign. Thais eat many parts of the animal in their common cuisine, but in Western food here you don’t see head cheese or fried pig’s ears. And you have Gaggan, doing some more out-of-the-box, avant garde food. All of those things help strengthen the Bangkok food scene.
B3,999, Nov 9-10, 6pm-10:30pm. Panorama, 23/F, Crowne Plaza Bangkok, 952 Rama 4 Rd., 02-632-9000. BTS Saladaeng