The buzz: Set up not far away from Chinatown, Nothing Sacred is an experimental dining space by Grammy Award winning chef Alex Jarvis and his wife Nicole Scott. After a successful Asian-inspired restaurant pop-up in Canada, the pair toured Thailand for about two years, sourcing the ingredients, culinary techniques, and creative juices to finally launch Nothing Sacred. The borderless cuisine transcends the plate and pumps through the experimental music tailored to each course. 

 

 

The vibe: Out front, the restaurant greets diners with a solid emerald green door and a single window that allows a peek into their grill station. It’s washed with warm lighting, idiosyncratic paintings, and a bunch of cat tokens from coasters to Doraemon figurines in reference to their logo. 

 

Boxes and jars of fermented goods line the shelves, as well as stacks of cassettes, and of course, the Grammy which sits at the corner shelf. It’s intimate and cozy, but there’s still enough room to fit around 6-8 guests without feeling cramped. The food is served on the candle-lit wooden counter where you’ll get a front seat view of the preparation process. 

 

 

The food: The 10 course tasting menu (B3,500) is focused on fermentation techniques and comes with its own tracks. Each dish is prepared and served with unique samples of chef Alex and Nicole’s favorite artists, recordings from the fields the food is grown, movies and commercials of their childhood, and more.

 

We begin with banana topped with Santa Barbara uni, buckwheat, and roasted rice. This one has the texture of a custard—blending in the sweetness of the banana with the ocean savory flavors of uni.

 

 

On the other spectrum of palette openers, Nothing Sacred serves up a refreshing assortment of dry aged mackerel and freshwater clams ladled with the fragrant burnt coconut broth and sliced up sun dried tomatoes to get that pop of zestiness. 

 

 

There’s also the juicy Satun river prawn brushed with fatty prawn brains while they sit on the grill. The meat is brought to a medium rare temperature so you can still feel a bit of bounciness in the middle. Underneath is sunchoke mixed with black garlic and soy milk which are made in-house everyday.

 

 

Harking back to their musical journey, the barbecue short ribs dish is reflective of their time in Nashville. It is glazed with squid barbecue sauce and dry aged for 48 hours to achieve that easy to pull apart fatty texture and upping the luxurious experience with a cut of raw chutoro that’s been warmed up by the hot ribs.

 

For dessert, they have unexpected couplings from the Chiang Rai blue cheese combined with the tropical mango, pineapple, and passionfruit puree to the kombu dashi ice cream paired with watermelon gel that’s been fermented to achieve that vinegar like acidity, and drizzled with honey that’s been fermented since 2017 to yield a profile similar to molasses.

 

 

The final boss is an homage to their first shop in Canada which used to be a congee and noodle spot. The cream fillings are the same fermented rice used in the welcome drink. It is then layered with a gelatinous fermented coffee top and finished off with pork floss from a famous Chinatown label.

 

 

The drinks: There’s a wine pairing courtesy of No Bar Wine Bar which goes for B1,600. Some easy to drink cocktails like the Persimmon Punch (B420), a peachy sweet and sour tipple to start the night with fragrant notes of rice from the sake base. 

 

And for non-alcoholic bevs, we recommend the unique bitter honey kombucha (B240) which subverts the extreme sour bite with subtle spice, oolong, and deep chocolate-y notes from cacao nibs. A sweeter option is the galangal kombucha which pairs baby snow chrysanthemum with jungle honey for a more floral fragrant sip.

 

 

Why we’d come back: This building has 5 floors so the fun has only just begun. Once everything runs smoothly on the first floor, the dynamic duo is planning to turn the second floor into a dessert lounge with cocktails for the guest to sit back and enjoy.