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World-class chefs are in high demand in
Bangkok these days. What do
the chefs think of their stardom?
 Gerald
Passedat appears tired, and rightfully so: just a few days earlier he was
probably happily filleting fish in the kitchen of Le Petit Nice, his two
Michelin star restaurant in
Marseilles. Today the chef is in Reflexions, the
Plaza Athenée Bangkok’s French restaurant, trying to balance answering
the questions of the local press with preparing a six-course meal for more
than 30 people. This is Passedat’s first time in
Thailand, not traditionally
a stopover on the route of Europe’s best chefs, and he’s obviously trying to
make the most of it. “Asia is important for us [chefs],” he explains. “We’ve
got to travel and see what’s happening, new types of cooking and
ingredients.”
This month alone, chefs from no fewer than six Michelin-starred
restaurants have visited Bangkok’s top hotels, from David Thompson, head
chef of London’s Nahm, the only Thai restaurant ever awarded a Michelin
star, to Pierre Gagnaire, head chef of the eponymous three-starred Paris
restaurant considered by many one of the finest in the world. In Bangkok
today, it’s no longer unusual to sit down any given week and enjoy a meal
that would have previously required a flight to Europe.
This month’s largely coincidental culinary deluge may well be the result
of consumer demand, but it is also an illustration of the current trend
among chefs of leaving their comfort zones and getting exposed to new
influences. I was fortunate enough to meet with some of the visiting chefs
and gained some interesting insights regarding Michelin stars, local
ingredients, as well as the state of fine dining in Bangkok.
Two chefs who are no strangers to Asia or Michelin stars are twin
brothers Jacques and Laurent Pourcel of Le Jardin des Senses in
Montpellier, France. Established in 1988, their restaurant quickly
accumulated praise for its Asian-influenced Mediterranean cuisine, and at
one point was awarded three Michelin stars. Since then, the Pourcels have
used their acclaim and skills to establish successful restaurants not in the
usual cities of
London and
New York,
but rather in Bangkok,
Tokyo,
Singapore and
Shanghai.
Despite their obvious success, the topic of Michelin stars can be a
touchy subject for the Pourcel brothers; after having held on to three stars
for four years, in 2004 Le Jardin des Sens was downgraded to two, where it
remains today. With this in mind, I visit
D’Sens,
the restaurant in the
Dusit Thani that the Pourcels oversee, and ask the brothers what they
feel are the negative and positive attributes of running a Michelin-starred
restaurant.
“The downside is that you’re seen as an ‘expensive’ restaurant,” explains
Laurent, “although now you can find some places in the guide that are
reasonable.” Jacques adds that, “nobody knows the judging standards. The
system isn’t perfect, but the chefs who receive two stars are generally very
good chefs and they deserve it.”
I mention the current flood of high-ranking chefs and ask the brothers if
they think that diners in Bangkok are really ready for such high-level
dining. “Thais still expect traditional cuisine,” replies Jacques. “They
aren’t yet used to modern [cuisine], but there is still time to learn to
appreciate new flavors and ingredients.” Ironically, in the case of the
Pourcels, many of the “new flavors and ingredients” Jacques speaks of are
actually staple ingredients in Thailand: passion fruit, coriander, tamarind
and coconut milk are among the ingredients that the Pourcels have seamlessly
integrated into traditional French cooking enough to make them
unrecognizable even to Thais.
French Chef Pierre Gagnaire, who is currently in residence at
The Oriental’s
Le
Normandie, has never been to Bangkok before, but it was really only a
matter of time. Gagnaire who is head chef of a restaurant in
Paris considered
among the finest in the world (and firmly clutching three Michelin stars),
is the virtual inspiration for an entire school of gastronomy, and is
considered by both chefs and diners alike to be among the finest chefs in
the world.
Despite all this, Gagnaire is fully conscious of how tenuous culinary
fame can be, having experienced a well-publicized financial collapse while
running a previous three-starred restaurant. That restaurant folded, but
Gagnaire eventually came back — in Paris of all places — and with his
current restaurant, Pierre Gagnaire, which holds three stars. I ask Gagnaire
if there’s a negative side to having three stars. “What’s bad is that you
can lose them,” explains the chef. “Say you’ve got a film director, and he
wins an Oscar. He can put it on his mantelpiece, it’s his for life,”
explains Gagnaire through a translator. “With three stars, you don’t get
them for life, you have to fight every day to keep them.”
Gagnaire is certainly willing to fight, and does this by challenging
diners with new flavors and textures (he calls them “disturbing minor
details” or “multisensory hits”). I ask him if he thinks diners in Bangkok
are ready for food of this level. “When it’s being done in a sincere and
honest way, people don’t need to have a lot of references and knowledge
about the cuisine to appreciate it,” explains the chef. However, when
traveling, Gagnaire admits that he feels less inclined to experiment. “It
would be great to do something like a lemongrass infusion, but that’s not
what people here want,” he explains.
Of all the chefs currently in town, Australian chef David Thompson
probably has the least enviable job of all: cooking an exclusively Thai meal
for diners in Bangkok. This is nothing new to Thompson who, after virtually
stumbling upon Thai food more than 20 years ago, pursued this then-obscure
school of cooking, eventually culminating in Nahm, his London restaurant, as
of yet the only restaurant specializing in Thai cuisine to have been awarded
a Michelin star.
Despite the unique accolade, Thompson is tangibly cynical about his star,
and when I ask him about the benefits it has brought, he says
straight-faced, “It gets you into restaurants easily.” After laughing, he
continues, “Any cook worth his fish sauce shouldn’t succumb to the idea of
doing things for awards,” he explains. “If you start to become preoccupied
with what other people think of you, or what awards you might garner, then
you start to lose the point of why you’re doing it in the first place.”
I ask Thompson, who is currently in Bangkok preparing his take on Thai
food at the
Metropolitan Hotel’s cy’an, if he feels that Thais are becoming more
sophisticated in their dining tastes. He replies, “I think it’s concomitant
with the incredible boom that’s happened in this country, where people are
becoming more affluent and wish to display their affluence. Thais have
always been a status-conscious society, and this is yet another way to
display that.”
Despite the media attention and consumer interest, for most hotels,
hosting a Michelin-starred chef is not necessarily a profitable venture.
“For us it’s a tradition,” explains Konstantino Blokbergen, director of food
& beverage of The Oriental Hotel, whose restaurant, Le Normandie, has been
hosting three-star chefs for almost 20 years. “But there is a cost
associated with it. Financially, we try to break even, but it’s not done to
make money. It’s an investment meant to last. It brings customers back.” In
any event, it seems to be an investment that many hotels are willing to
make, and with rumors of a possible Michelin Guide to Asia in the air, can
also be seen as a sign of greater things to come.
Back at Reflexions, two-star chef Gerald Passedat is posing for photos
and trying his best to look cheerful. Earlier I had a chance to ask him how
important getting the third Michelin star is to him. “When you have three
[stars] you can open restaurants anywhere in the world and do whatever you
want,” he explains. “But naturally, my goal is simply to make the customers
happy.” Judging by the reaction from Bangkok’s diners, I would say that
Passedat and his colleagues have been, without a doubt, successful in this
area.
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