Bangkok's Hottest Tables Have Moved Inside Chefs' Homes

If there's one city where dining out has long been a decidedly public affair, it's Bangkok. Here, oil-slicked kitchens spill out over sidewalks, food courts take over entire mall floors, and mobile restaurants line curbs around town serving noodles, curries, and stir-fries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Even the city's top tables, often set in stately villas or high-end hotels, tend to be a high-visibility rendezvous for the local society set.

But when the pandemic wreaked havoc on Bangkok's dining scene (long-standing favorites like Bo.Lan and Soul Food Mahanakon have closed their doors forever), one breed of restaurants flourished by offering the opposite of public space: a private dining experience in a chef's own home. Following job losses and failed business plans, a slew of chefs and savvy home cooks turned their home kitchens and living rooms into one-table restaurants—and they're thriving.

Private dining isn't new to the city, but the pandemic has spurred the scene in a different direction. "It has become more accessible and affordable," says Pruepat Songtieng, a food writer based in Bangkok. For years, private chefs' tables were mainly the provenance of brick-and-mortar restaurants and leaned toward the finer side of dining, with long tasting menus, top-tier wines, and prices to match (such as the perennially booked $275-a-head Beef Omakase at The Table by Chef Pam). But dinners at a home restaurant go for a fraction of that price and come with a BYOB policy to sweeten the deal, without sacrificing quality or attention on the part of the chef.

Reduced contact with other guests is an obvious part of the increased appeal, but there's more at play, Songtieng says. "Thanks to cooking competitions on TV and food shows on Netflix, people increasingly want to know the stories behind the plates in front of them," she says. “Chef's tables are exciting because guests get to learn more about the ingredients and see cooking techniques in action from up close. The kitchen has now become a theater.”

For Thai-Malay chef Vishanu 'Bank' Prempuk, that was one of the reasons to open his one-table restaurant Aromkwan, an Asian-influenced smokehouse and grill located on the ground floor of his home on a residential alley in the Phrom Phong district. "I always tell my staff: we're not a restaurant, we're a rock band," Prempuk says. "We create experiences and memories for our guests, something I wouldn't be able to do in a traditional restaurant." It's no surprise, then, that he's known to whip out his guitar to play Malaysian songs for his guests after dessert.

Aromkwan started as a side hustle; with a mobile smoker Prempuk grilled Izakaya-style meat skewers infused with spicy Northeastern Thai flavors at pop-up events. When the pandemic hit he left his main job as a chef at a Laotian restaurant, and eventually opened Aromkwan as a dine-in spot in April 2021. Feasibility studies showed that a private restaurant would help him keep costs down, a safer bet in these perilous times. "Now I only have one table to fill," he says. "If I fuck that up, I'd be the worst chef in the world."

With a waitlist ranging from two weeks to two months, he has clearly struck a chord. Aromkwan's sole table seats up to 12 guests and can only be booked by one party at a time. The four-course menu, priced at 2,350 Baht (around $70) per person, is served on banana leaves and without cutlery as a tribute to Prempuk's Indian-Malay grandmother. Dishes fuse her recipes with Prempuk's grilling skills, resulting in dishes like goat curry and fragrant biryani with pork knuckle that has been brined, braised, and smoked for 30 hours.

Haawm is another pandemic-induced opening, located deep inside the residential On Nut area. When Thai-American chef Dylan Eitharong moved to Bangkok from Orlando (where he ran pop-up restaurant Bangrak Thai Street Kitchen) at the end of 2019, he planned to turn his house, which belongs to his aunt, into an Airbnb where he'd host cooking classes. But, then, of course, the pandemic happened, and tourism came to a standstill.

Instead, he turned his dining room into a one-table restaurant where he now creates family-style meals, delivered through a serving hatch in the kitchen. With space for just six guests (either a single group or a few smaller ones), he wears the hats of host, chef, and waiter all at the same time. "I like that I can cook whatever I want and however I want to," he says. "I like interacting with my guests, and this format gives me the chance to do so on an intimate level."

His dishes change every week, but all have their roots in the classic Thai kitchen. Taking inspiration from 1970s- and 1980s-era cookbooks, the nightly seven-course sharing menus for 1500 THB ($45) per person could include moreish Massaman curry with smoked lamb shoulder, zingy Thai-style salad with grilled duck and ginger, or house-made chili relish.

"[Opening Haawm as a chef's table] has been the best choice considering the lockdowns and restrictions we've had," Eitharong says. "I would like to expand somehow when things are looking a bit more normal, but I'm patient until then."

For the team behind private dining space Chef Next Door, the opportunity to grow presented itself well before any sense of normalcy returned. After the pandemic forced Piriya Boonprasan to leave his job in the Michelin-starred kitchen of Saawaan, he co-launched a private restaurant in a small condo in the suburban Lad Phrao district in July last year. As bookings poured in, the team operating the restaurant managed to move to a bigger house in a different corner of Lad Phrao, and have since opened three private dining rooms in an informal restaurant attached to a home.

Despite the location change, the menu continues what they do best: Thai classics from local and seasonal ingredients (think red curry with confit pork ribs and khanom jeen fermented rice noodles with scallop), served in eight- or nine- course tasting menus for 1,800 THB ($54) per person.

Whether they're a stepping stone to a full-fledged restaurant or a low-commitment platform for chefs to hone their craft, these private at-home tables add an exciting new flavor to Bangkok's dining scene. The format brings diners closer to chefs, but also vice versa. "Many of my customers have become very good friends," Prempuk says. "That's the best outcome of this whole thing."

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler