The buzz: Whether from his Netflix Chef’s Table, eccentric menu, or mercurial personality, Gaggan Anand requires little introduction. The celebrity chef returned with Gaggan Anand in Phrom Phong after behind-the-scenes drama closed the original Gaggan in 2019. It’s no hyperbole to state that this 25-course fine dining experience is the go-to for traveling foodies; the whispered excitement outside the late night seating at 11pm is nothing short of electric. 

The vibe: The intimate 14-seating dining experience is three parts theater, one part rock and roll. Sit down, and the proverbial curtain rises. An open serving area roils with chefs tweezing garnishes into place in dark and red tones as storytelling on the history and pedigree of the dish is presented by a charismatic chef with the enthusiasm and sincerity of a self-help seminar or pickup artist—but in a good way. The music is curated to the dishes, sometimes quite literally in the case of a dish that comes on a shard of ice to “Ice, Ice Baby” from Vanilla Ice.

The food: Defying description is a perennial hallmark for Gaggan—and going through each of the 25 courses would beggar our word count. With an obvious penchant for Indian flavors, the menu runs the gamut—green pea meringue with fried chicken skin, aged squid curry with yellow chili and kari pata, white asparagus brain with black truffle bread—and rather than each course complimenting the next, there is very much a sense of contradiction with the dishes. And it works. It’s not often that fine dining can be (actually and really) cool, but if it can be, this is it. The diner finds themselves in a maelstrom of careful ingredients and wild science experiments. The crab pulao with basmati rice, for example, preempts a playful ice shard of pineapple and caramelized jaggery, green chili, and salt. It was, however, the more “traditional” dishes (if anything at Gaggan Annand could be said to be traditional) that really stole the show. The mid-dinner meat dishes such as the chicken tikka masala charcoal and the pork jowl vindaloo with pineapple chutney and mango yuzu surge with flavor that belie a care and precision behind the dynamism. A broad theme of the fall/winter menu is globetrotting; guests receive a passport with stickers and the whole meal rounds out with an edible “World Map” of jasmine cream amidst a rainbow of flavors. Open only for 10 months a year, there are two seatings a day, the latest being at 11pm, and the menu changes seasonally.

Why we’d come back: It’s Gaggan. You know, Gaggan? Sure, we enjoy the show and the feeling of being in a science/social experiment (or perhaps the movie The Menu), but it’s the food that draws visitors from around the globe. You’ll find a lot of people in the industry with something to say about Gaggan—but no one can fault the food. When the new menu drops in a few months, we wouldn’t want to miss that.