The arts are still alive
The arts are still alive in Bangkok ... many people can still use their hands to create — Bill Bensley didn’t help us.” He is now suing the government – “It’s hard, but it’s the right thing to do,” he says – and has become a minor celebrity. “He’s a hero to those of us in the food and drink world,” exclaims my press attaché at one of the city’s new hotels. “He’s saying all the things we want to say but are too afraid to.” Her current full-time job is working for the hotel, but she and her boyfriend have just started a stall in a nearby food market, where it’s only open a few nights per week – but her ambition is to grow it into a full-time gig. This sort of casual entrepreneurship is one of Bangkok’s most charming qualities – and one of the first things you see when exploring the streets. It’s also the first thing US Ambassador Robert Godec says to me when I visit him at the sprawling US Embassy compound, one of the largest in the world. “The entrepreneurship and creativity are incredible in Bangkok,” he enthuses. He has only been in the city for nine months, but he runs several mornings each week with the Bangkok Governor (Chadchart Sittipunt, one of the most-liked politicians in Thailand) and the two have become fast friends – there is something, after all, remarkably similar about the emphasis on free enterprise in both the US and Bangkok. Take Chef Pam, as she’s known locally – Pichaya Utharntharm on all the documents – who transformed her family’s five-storey row house in Chinatown into a dazzling restaurant, Potong, which earned a Michelin star last year, its first full year open. A pharmacy run by her Chinese-origin family for four generations before her, the property has been entirely renovated over the course of three years and turned into a remarkable destination restaurant that is less than 10 minutes’ walk from Anuman’s bars in Chinatown. “Although we all had the toughest time during the pandemic,” says the Thai- Australian chef who earned her fine-dining stripes at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s eponymous gastro temple in Manhattan. “Right now, for me, Bangkok is at its strongest and most vibrant. You see hundreds of new restaurants opening up.” Her Chinese-Thai fusion cuisine is like nothing else in the city – and its international purview is very much in line with other notable restaurants that have turned Bangkok into one of the world’s great cities for dining, from Nordic fare at Villa Franztén to Mexican plates at Ojo. And yet for all the global accolades – Bangkok now has 40 Michelin stars, more than Los Angeles or Rome – the recent history of the city still looms large. As Chef Pam puts it: “You can see a rooster crowing in front of you while gazing up at a tall skyscraper.” This evolution from chaotic backwater to global beacon is one that Bill Bensley, one of the world’s leading hotel designers, has seen firsthand. Not long after graduating from Harvard, Bensley came to Bangkok in 1984. “I remember the walk from the plane to the immigration, across the airport runway, to an open-air hangar where there might have been eight to ten booths under fans,” he says. “I started my own business in Bangkok in 1989, in a parking garage with no windows, but it was free. My Thai friends blew me away with their kindness.” He still calls Bangkok home, and what remains most interesting in the city for him is “that the arts are still alive ... many people can still use their hands to create”. The hotel he designed from tip to toe, The Siam, remains an utterly beguiling urban sanctuary in the residential Dusit district, but the headlines these days are coming by way of a surge of international newcomers, many of which also feature that local artistry Bensley so treasures. Rosewood opened just before the pandemic, and other standout newcomers include The Standard and Soho House, while both Ritz- Carlton and Aman have already started construction on forthcoming hotels. But it’s a new riverside complex housing both Capella and Four Seasons that is making the most headlines. The latter is best for public spaces – great restaurants, one of the world’s best bars, an art gallery and more – but Capella is unbeatable across the city for guest experience. With just 101 rooms, all of which face the slow-moving waters of the Chao Phraya 44 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
Clockwise from centre left: five-storey Potong rises above Chinatown; Chef Pam; in the kitchen at Cantonese eatery Yu Ting Yuan at Four Seasons; Niks Anuman outside his establishment Teens of Thailand; Yakult and Pipo, chef Pam's ice cream and fruit jelly palate cleanser PHOTOS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: GASTROFILM, © MANDARIN ORIENTAL, CHRIS SCHALKX, GASTROFILM, DOF SKYGROUND CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 45
