78
78 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM PHOTOS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: GASTROFILM, © MANDARIN ORIENTAL, CHRIS SCHALKX (2), DOF SKYGROUND
Kaiseki dining at Kinu by Takagi at Mandarin Oriental; opposite, 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 bar Teens of Thailand; an ironic neon piece of art inside another of Anuman’s bars, Asia Today PHOTO © FOUR SEASONS 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.” 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”. CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 79
