Wonderful food, great value, great staff: the best value fine dining in Bangkok.
The three amuse bouche set the scene for a truly amazing meal. First raw prawn with caviar and cucumber: fresh, delicate, and delicious. Then a salmon tart with citrus and herbs in a delicate but crispy case: an explosion of flavours and a great range of textures - like a culinary firework exploding in one’s mouth! I didn’t see how that experience could be bettered, but the final marcel was an incredible confection of foie gras and it was superb: so full of umami flavours and again with great texture!
Then onto a demi -tasse of a clear crab soup, sweet, rich, dark and interesting: looking like an expression but so savoury and delicious. That was served with a small roll of potato bread ( perfection!) and a seaweed butter: such an interplay of flavours! Wonderful!
Then a dish of blue crab meat ( so sweet, so fresh, so good) with bacon crumbs, crispy potatoes: a dish one just wanted to eat more of!
Next a showstopper! OMG! Canadian scallops (plump, sweet, juicy, perfectly cooked and among the best I’ve ever eaten) with morel mushrooms, a foie gras emulsion, sunchoke ( Jerusalem artichoke) dumplings ( like gyozo) and a truffle sauce! That sounds like a lot of flavours, but they came together in a harmonious whole that had us both in raptures! An incredible dish, utterly delicious: I want to eat it again and again: I love each of the flavour elements, but together they added up to so much more than the sum of the parts: a synergy of flavours that sang out- think if the finale of Beethoven’s 9th symphony - the Ode to Joy! But I bet that neither Schiller nor Beethoven ever ate such an amazing dish! A word of advice about wine pairing for this dish: a good red Burgundy or equivalent, rather than a Chardonnay ( as I’d chosen), or perhaps a rich Alsace pinot gris would work.
Next a green apple granita with celery and lime: great texture and a fresh flavour, seemingly with just a hint of salt : a perfect palate cleanser before our main courses.
I chose the Wagyu tenderloin: a superb piece if meat, expertly cooked with an almost crisp exterior enclosing meltingly soft flesh within, served with an unctuous dark sauce… wow! My girlfriend, who is not really a fan of beef, loved it so much that she wants to go back to have this as her main course next time!
Her main course was Boston lobster in a green pea sauce, with asparagus and a superb mousseline sauce ( incredibly delicious): she loved it!
Finally quark ice cream with elderflower, pomelo and lemon, with a small German doughnut ( a “Berliner”) by way of contrast. Refreshing and delicious.
But of course that wasn’t the end!
3 petites fours to end the meal :
Chocolate with a passion fruit filling, a pistachio confection, and another based on coconut ( and yes, I had several glasses of wine inside me by this time, so my attention to detail was somewhat diminished!). The coffee was excellent!
It was a wonderful meal, and the staff were professional but warm and charming.
We were amazed to learn that the meal was prepared by no more than about 5 people ( the restaurant was pretty busy, too) - a tremendous feat.
We met the chef/patron Mirco Keller, who was charming and friendly.
We will be going back again soon, because the a la carte menu offers lots of interesting dishes that we can’t wait to try.
A shoe-in for at least one Michelin star later this year: go now while you can still get a table!
And a big thank you to the kitchen team and the front of house team: you gave us a memorable night.