Is Bangkok the food and hospitality capital of the world?

Which city do you think has the largest number of the world’s best restaurants?

If you answered London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong or New York, you would be completely wrong.

 

The correct answer is Bangkok, which has six of the 50 Best Restaurants in the World according to the organisation that makes these lists every year.

 

   The same organisation does a list of the 50 Best Restaurants in Asia, and there too, the number one restaurant was in Bangkok: Our very own Gaggan Anand.

 

   Michelin has not been very far behind. Bangkok now has the world’s first Thai restaurant with three Michelin stars and a clutch of two-star restaurants, including the excellent Côte by Mauro Colagreco.

 

   Michelin has yet to come to India, but the 50 Best Restaurants in the World list does claim to cover India. And last week, when they announced the list, it was a little odd to find that not one restaurant in all of India made it to the list.

 

   So Bangkok: 6 vs India: 0.

 

   Not fair, is it?

 

   But that’s not the only distinction Bangkok has won in the last few months. The World’s 50 Best, the organisation that rates restaurants, also rates the best hotels. And on the current list, the number one, and therefore the best hotel in the world, is the Capella on the Chao Phraya River, another triumph for Bangkok.

 

   So, has Bangkok, which most of us know well and regard a reasonably priced holiday destination that is not too far away, suddenly become much more: The food and hospitality capital of the world?

 

   It sure as hell looks like it.

 

   Let’s start with the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, because that announcement was the most recent. Though Gaggan Anand has the reigning number one restaurant in Asia, I wondered how he would fare on the more significant international list.

 

   The announcement ceremony was in Torino, and just before he left for Italy, Gaggan came over to the brand new Aman where I was staying (I will do a separate piece on how the Aman group created niche super-luxury hospitality later). We spent three hours chatting and I was surprised by his quiet confidence. He knew he would be in the Top Ten, but what intrigued me was how confident he was about Bangkok’s prospects.

 

"You can get amazing deals at hotels, restaurants are never full and even as it gets so much global acclaim, Bangkok has never been better value for luxury."

   At first, I was a little disbelieving, because all the restaurants he was sure would make it were owned by his friends: Chef Ton who runs Nusara and Le Du, Chef Pam of Potong, and the Suhring twins who shine at their eponymous restaurant where Gaggan is a partner. As Sorn is the only Thai restaurant with three Michelin stars, Gaggan was sure it would also be high up on the list. (He was sort of right: Sorn came in at 17, but was way behind Gaggan and behind Pam’s Potong as well.)

 

   Six restaurants? I told Gaggan he was nuts until I woke up two days later and saw the list. Gaggan had been absolutely right. Ton got both his restaurants on the list, and 50 Best rated Nusara higher than Le Du. That’s the opposite of how Michelin sees it, but I think 50 Best got it right.

 

   The 50 Best Restaurants list can be controversial because it can be gamed by restaurants willing to spend money on agents and agencies that handle the so-called influencers who constitute many of the 1,100 voters who are the electorate for the list. As the New York Times noted sneeringly: “Unlike lists that are reported by publications including The New York Times and Le Monde, or inspected anonymously by an independent entity like the Michelin Guide, the World’s 50 Best list allows its 1,100 voters to accept free meals and other perks. The voters are supposed to remain anonymous, but many of the ‘gastronomic experts’ are chefs, food writers and public-relations professionals who are well known in the food world.”

 

   Yet, what nobody can deny is that the list makes a huge difference to the commercial performance of restaurants abroad, which is why so many of the world’s top chefs attend the ceremony and long to get on to the list. As for manipulation, it’s not always as easy as is often suggested. I know Indian restaurants that have spent lakhs trying to get on with no success; they have to be content with the lesser Asia list. On the other hand, while a place on the list can improve profitability abroad (in Bangkok, for instance) it makes no commercial difference to restaurants in India and remains a photo-op and ego trip for our restaurateurs.

 

   Not all great Bangkok restaurants made it to the list. I had dinner at Côte, the restaurant run by Davide Garavaglia for his boss, Mauro Colagreco. Mauro is one of the world’s greatest chefs and it is to his credit that he has given Davide a free hand. For instance, Mauro’s signature pigeon dish is suitably tweaked, and Davide creates big flavours while preserving the delicate nature of each dish.

 

   There is no printed menu. Davide customises the meal for each guest depending on their preferences and what ingredients are available that day. Côte has two Michelin stars, and now that Michelin has done its duty and given three stars to a Thai restaurant, Côte is finally in the running for a third star (with Suhring as the other European contender.)

 

   Côte missed out on 50 Best, but the hotel it is located in, Capella, topped the global hotel list. Forget about the enormity of the global achievement, but just in Bangkok terms, this is a huge coup. When the hotel opened, it was seen as the little brother to its neighbour the new Four Seasons, and further down, along the river, was the legendary The Oriental. It has now swept past them, surprising everyone in Bangkok.

 

   I spent three days there and could see why it was voted the world’s best hotel. It’s not huge (around 100 rooms) so service is warm, efficient and personalised. The food is very good (compared to both the Oriental and the Four Seasons, certainly) and includes the Côte experience as well as a casual Thai restaurant that does non-five-star-hotel food.

 

   The rooms are huge and elegant and every one of them has a view of the river. It more than deserves its success.

 

   As I guess does Bangkok. And here’s the irony. Because Chinese tourists have stopped coming, Bangkok’s hospitality scene has suffered. You can get amazing deals at hotels, restaurants are never full and even as it gets so much global acclaim, Bangkok has never been better value for luxury.