There’s Never Been a More Exciting Time to Eat Thai in Bangkok

For a long time, Thai fine dining in Bangkok was synonymous with lavish multicourse menus drawing on recipes from the royal court. Long regarded as the pinnacle of the country’s cuisine, these meals featured intricately carved vegetables and the choicest cuts of deboned fish and meat. The meticulously balanced flavors were neither too spicy nor overly heavy on funky inflections such as pla ra (fermented fish paste). Restaurants specializing in Royal Thai cooking mostly catered to tourists; locals splurged on fine French or Japanese cuisine.

Around the mid-2010s, something changed. Inspired by the locavore movement sweeping through restaurants worldwide, a new crop of ambitious young Thais shifted focus to recipes and little-known ingredients from beyond the regal kitchens. Chef Napol Jantraget championed seasonal produce when he opened his casual fine diner 80/20 in 2015, and Chalee Kader highlighted northeastern Thai nose-to-tail cooking at 100 Mahaseth which launched in Bangkok’s old town in 2017. They introduced Bangkok's cash-flush diners to locally raised meat, tribal food-preservation techniques and herbs from the country's rural corners that even most Thais had never heard of.