French restaurant Bonjour (1217/2 Sukhumvit Rd., 02-714-2112) insists that even its water be imported from France. And yet, when their veteran French chef left them earlier this year, Bonjour simply promoted its 27-year-old sous-chef, Siwametr Boonyarittiwong, to replace him. As he rolls out an ambitious new foie gras menu (foie gras soup, anyone?), we ask Siwametr if customers choked on their baguette when the fresh-faced Thai took the kitchen’s helm.

How did people deal with you replacing a seasoned French chef?
They mostly noticed because I changed the menu. Besides, it’s the owner’s job to do the explaining. I think clients were happy with the food but surprised. Some were even a bit reticent.

Do you think this could have been possible a few years ago?
Well, this generation of Thai chefs is new. I’m from the first class of the Vatel Institute. The Cordon Bleu is pretty recent, too. So everyone in my kitchen is 26 or 27, like me, and they’ve been trained at these schools and the Silpakorn Hotel School and we get along really well. It’s great.

Why are you doing this foie gras menu?
I’ve been cooking professionally for four years, and it’s one the first products I worked with. Everyone eats it pan-fried here, so I wanted to show you can do more with foie gras. It can be used like butter, like cream, you can change its texture from a foam to a mousse, and you don’t need to add gelatin. So if you mix it with chocolate, for example, it’s great, you don’t need to add anything else.

Did you develop these recipes yourself?
Sure. I read a lot, I watch a lot of videos. But these recipes are mine. Like with the foie gras soup, I was trying to make a sauce, and it ended up being too liquid. So I said, let’s do a soup. And I added oysters because everyone always expects sweet stuff with foie gras, but the salt actually cuts through the fattiness.

What makes a good foie?
You want smaller ones, with a nice eggshell color and very few veins inside. A good foie won’t lose its fat when you pan-fry it. It should be sweet, but not too sweet. We use Rougie Grande Cuisine, which is the best there is—only three places in town use it.

Is it hard to work with foie gras?
The slightest change in temperature can completely change the consistency so we have to use devices like the Thermomix to mix the foie at precisely controlled temperatures. Then I even run it through a chinois (a fine mesh strainer) for even greater homogeneity.