Gaa, Michelin star restaurant, Bangkok - Review

Cuisine: Thai/Indian Fusion
Location: Langsuan, Bangkok
Price: ££££
Food: 3/5
Style Points: 3/5
Value for Money: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

The Story

Gaa is the creation of Mumbai-born chef Garima Arora, an immensely respected chef in the industry who has worked alongside the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Gaggan Anand and honed her trade at one of the best restaurants in the world, Noma in Copenhagen.

It is at this fine-dining mecca that Garima learnt the art of putting fermentation at the centre of the cooking process and creating eclectic culinary ‘experiences’ whilst allowing the locally sourced ingredients to take centre stage. She has taken this with her to Gaa along with the tried and tested Indian techniques that she was brought up on. Since opening in 2017 opposite another world-class restaurant, Gaggan, where Garima was previously a sous chef, Gaa has won a coveted Michelin Star and Garima has become a pioneer in the process as she became the first female Indian chef to win a star. 

Returning to Bangkok from my travels across Laos and Vietnam, I was more than excited to stop by Gaa to try the 10 course tasting menu and to see how Garima has blended Thai and Indian cuisine into something magical. Yet, I somehow left Gaa feeling disappointed and, for want of a better word, quite confused. Read on to find out why exactly I felt this way.

The Food

Walking past Gaggan’s restaurant, which is closing at the end of 2019 to much dismay, we made our way into Gaa and followed a smartly dressed and suave member of the Gaa team up the stairs to the second floor where we took our seats inside a simple yet elegantly styled and furnished room. 

At Gaa, you can either opt for the Tasting Menu or the Vegetarian Tasting Menu and you can also choose a wine pairing with every course or non-alcoholic juices that are meant to compliment the flavours of each dish. We decided on the normal tasting menu with the non-alcoholic juice pairing. 

The dishes were either hot or cold and I won’t go through each and every dish but I will highlight the few that stood out for a particular reason. The second course certainly stood out for me, which is simply titled Savoury Betel Leaf. These leaves are very popular in India and are more commonly used as an edible ‘wrapper’ for snack called Paan, which is filled with various herbs, seeds and pastes and is eaten primarily to ‘freshen’ the mouth. This course was served on a mock tree with the two betel leaves hanging at the top. In all honesty, it just tasted like a fried betel leaf, yet everyone around us was in awe at the presentation and couldn’t seem to comprehend that they were eating a leaf as a course. It was quite bizarre and the best part for me was the Pomegranate, Mulberry and Rosewater juice which was served for the first three courses. 

Another dish that stood out was Chicken Liver with Longan. This was essentially shards of freeze-dried chicken liver served cold with hints of longan fruit running through it. For me, it tasted like coronation chicken, which I do like, but there was no texture with the dish and it felt like I was eating baby food by the end of it. The juice pairing was Banana Water which I found quite unusual and complex in flavour. 

One dish I did like was Pork, which was a piece of grilled pork belly with pomegranates and finely diced onions and peppers on top. The pork was cooked very nicely and I really enjoyed eating it. 

One of Gaa’s signature dishes is titled Corn and is charred baby corn served whole in their natural casings with a smoked cornmeal dip on the side. I really wanted this dish to live up to the hype and make give me that wow factor but again I just felt it was underwhelming as it just tasted like I expected it to - like baby sweetcorn. The couple next to us were taking selfies with the corn and commenting on how ‘awesome’ it looked and I just felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode where ‘all is not as it seems.’ 

A couple of dishes that I did enjoy were the Spicy Duck Doughnut and the Unripe Jackfruit and Pickles. The doughnuts were similar to Japanese Takoyaki balls in appearance and texture yet inside was a nicely spiced duck curry melange. The jackfruit dish was definitely a reflection of Garima’s culinary work with fermentation as well as the cooking from her home country and I enjoyed the fact that there was a host of Indian style pickles with which to be creative with. The pairing juice of Aubergine, Ginger and Orange juice had an overpowering flavour of ginger taste but there was a nice aroma of smoked aubergine from it. 

One of the dessert dishes was Chocolate Betel Leaf. Again it was another solitary betel leaf to reflect the beginning of the tasting menu, this time on a plate however. This betel leaf was very much like Paan and had familiar flavours coming from the fennel powder, sweet rose paste, and the cardamom and chocolate coating on half of the leaf. Being from Indian heritage and having travelled to India several times I’ve tried Paan many times and have never really like the taste. The incredibly chewy and not so subtle ingredients come together to create an amalgamation of sweet, sour and savoury flavours in your mouth. This dessert tasted pretty much exactly like a paan (without the chewing thankfully!) and so I didn’t really enjoy it sadly but I appreciate the homage to the way Indians typically end a meal. 

The Price and Service

The tasting menu was 3,200 Baht each (£85.61/$103.89) and the juice pairing was 1,200 Baht (£32.08/$38.96.) The total price of our dinner for two with juice pairing was 8,800 Baht (£235.28/$285.71.) By no means cheap but certainly more affordable than other Michelin restaurants you’d find around the world, especially in Europe. I must say that the service was fantastic and I really appreciated the fact that the servers and even various members of the culinary team would come out before course was served to explain what the dish is and how it came into being. I love finding out about the dishes I’m eating and the story behind them so this was a great touch. The service otherwise was very good and the servers were noticeably trained to work with one another when preparing the tables for each course so it all worked like clockwork. 

Overall

In essence, the food at Gaa seemed more like it wanted to shock you and to show how food can cross over into an art form, which I completely understand. However, I really felt that this was achieved at the expense of taste and flavour which is why I was really quite disappointed with my experience. I knew that I wouldn’t expect to like every dish in an ‘experimental’ cuisine but I didn’t love any of the dishes and outstanding food should excite your palate and wake up all your senses but the food I tried did not do this.

I just feel that Gaa has sacrificed taste and flavour in order to create dishes that are considered outlandish and unique in their cooking and appearance. Some of the dishes made me think to myself that’s a bit different or unique but there wasn’t one dish that stopped me in my tracks and made me say ‘my God that’s delicious’ which is what a Michelin starred restaurant should be aiming to achieve first and foremost...isn’t it?

This is all of course my humble opinion and if you’ve been to Gaa or are planning to visit I would love to know your thoughts. 

Book your experience at Gaa, Bangkok.
Address: 68/4 Lumphini, Pathum Wan District, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Phone: +66 91 419 2424

Thank you to Tourism Authority of Thailand UK for organising.