Issaya Siamese Club - Restaurant Review

Cuisine: Thai
Location: Central Bangkok
Price: £££
Food: 5/5
Style Points: 5/5
Value for Money: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

The Story

First of all, Issaya Siamese Club was so hard to find that even our experienced tuk tuk driver had trouble finding it and had to knock on a couple of car windows in rush hour to find its hidden location. When we finally arrived, what awaited us was a strikingly beautiful century old two-storey mansion with a vibrant tropical garden full of gorgeous foliage, luscious fruit trees and fragrant herbs.

It was like we found the Garden of Eden just off Rama IV Road. The house has a distinct colonial feel to it and has terracotta tiled floors, dark wood furnishings, velvet sofas with floral cushions, and stunning bright blue painted pillars running throughout to give it a real distinctive look.

The restaurant is the brainchild of chef Ian Kittichai, the biggest celebrity chef in Thailand who is a regular host on the Thai versions of Masterchef and Iron Chef. Ian started from very humble beginnings helping his mother by pushing a food cart around his neighbourhood to try and sell her various curry dishes to anyone who would pass by.

Fast forward to the present and Ian now has restaurants in top cities all over the world and is far from where he was as a child yet he still maintains his love for Thai cuisine and Bangkok as a whole.

Issaya Siamese Club is Ian’s flagship restaurant and is a Michelin Guide restaurant as well as appearing on several top restaurant lists including The Diner’s Club World’s 50 Best Restaurant list. Suffice to say, Issaya Siamese Club has a reputation as one of the best restaurants in Bangkok and I was eager to try some of the dishes to see for myself.

The Food?

Our incredibly friendly waiter seated us and recommended a couple of cocktails - Pandan Cooler (42 Below Vodka paired with sparkling wine, elderflower and pandan) and Le Issaya Cocktail (Grey Goose Vodka with house-made mulberry sorbet topped with sparkling rose wine.)

The Pandan Cooler came in a decorative silver cup placed inside an ornate wooden holder that was filled with dry ice to give it that wow factor of which I’m always a fan. Importantly, it tasted delicious and if you love the flavour of pandan this is definitely the cocktail for you. The second cocktail was less spectacular in appearance yet was equally delicious and full of the sweet and fruity flavour of mulberry.

Onto the food and to start we tried a couple of the restaurant's signature dishes - Yum Hua Plee, Kanom-Krok, and Kradook Moo Ob Sauce. Yum Hua Plee is banana blossom and heart of palm salad with crispy shallots and roasted peanuts in a chili jam dressing. There was a whole host of sweet, salty and spicy flavour sensations that, coupled with different textures, really made this a fabulous appetizer.

The plating perhaps could have been better but it really doesn’t matter when the food itself ticks all the boxes. Kanom-Krok was coconut creme brulee, Khao Yai humanely raised minced chicken, galangal, kaffir lime leaves and chili jam. This dish was more like an amuse bouche which you put in your mouth and let your tongue be hit with an explosion of different flavours.

The creme brulee was essentially the popular street-food coconut pancake that’s been topped with an amalgam of ingredients that cleverly elevate it to make become more than humble mini pancakes. It was again a delicious dish and I really liked the chili jam in particular which worked beautifully with the sweet coconut flavour. I also loved the simple plating of putting it into a banana leaf ‘boat’ - simple yet extremely effective, like the dish itself.

One of the most popular and standout dishes of the restaurant is Kradook Moo Ob Sauce - spice rubbed pork baby back ribs glazed with Issaya House blended chili paste. This dish instantly reminded me of my travels to Chiang Mai where we stopped regularly at one of the street food stalls that prepared little skewers of fatty pork that were barbecued on little makeshift outdoor grills and basted with a moreish spice-rub that still makes my mouth salivate just thinking about it.

This dish emulates that northern Thai specialty perfectly, and even comes out on a mini grill to symbolise the fact that it’s a street food dish. This is a must try dish and is easily one of the best dishes I’ve tried in Bangkok and that’s a hard feat given the fact I’ve tried many street food stalls and Michelin starred restaurants during this trip.

Onto round two and this time we shared a soup called Sai Klok Talay - a Hua-Hin style seafood broth with house-made shellfish sausage and an assortment of seafood. My husband isn’t the biggest fan of fish but he loved this soup, stating several times that ‘it doesn’t taste like fish!’ meaning that it tastes great. I would have to agree, there was no fishy aftertaste at all and the broth itself was sweet and sour with a fiery kick of chili. It was refreshing with bold flavours and great mix of texture coming from the wonderful array of shellfish.

For the mains, we tried a couple of dishes - Gai Aob and Mussaman Gae. Gai Aob is charcoal grilled free-range chicken coated in an ‘Issaya spiced’ rub. The chicken itself was beautifully cooked so the chicken was incredibly tender, juicy and moist, the three words you want to hear when chicken is being described. The spice rub also gave the chicken a wonderful flavour that is hard to describe but instead I’d like to think of it as the Thai equivalent of a peri-peri rub - the ultimate spice-rub for chicken.

Mussaman Gae is a lamb shank simmered in mussaman curry and it is quite simply stunning. Lamb is my favourite meat and this lamb slid smoothly off the bone and was incredibly tender and super moist, a feat in itself as lamb is notorious to overcook. The sauce itself was incredibly moreish with sweet flavour and a bbq undertone that probably came from the cooking process.

Issaya Siamese Club, Bangkok - Restaurant Review

There was also a good amount of sauce which is always a relief and there was plenty to mop the lamb up with, however, we also ordered a rice dish called Khao Aob that was quite dry on its own but was great when mixed with the mussaman curry sauce. Khao Aob is a dish inspired by chef Kittichai’s father as is a mixture of asian multigrains, Chiang Mai mushrooms, and garlic sprinkled with mushroom-scented oil. It was a nice enough dish but if you’re full at this point I would avoid it as it’s a huge portion too and we were nowhere near to finishing it.

Before moving onto dessert, we decided to take a stroll around the gardens before the rain kicked in and found it to be such a relaxing and peaceful environment. It’s such a great space and I really admire how it was designed and put together to give it a distinct look and feel.

For dessert, we tried the Broken Bucket and Mango Sticky Rice. The mango sticky rice is a unique twist on the popular and delicious mango sticky rice dessert that can be found all over Thailand and consists of sliced mango with balls of sticky rice topped with coconut cream. It’s just a beautiful dessert and this dish is a modern twist on it. The mango is actually a chocolate dome moulded into the shape of a mango and is full of coconut cream, sliced mango and almonds.

The waiter explains what the dessert is at your table before cracking the mango to reveal the delicious filling. It’s incredible fun and a great reinterpretation of a simple yet delicious dessert. However, the piece de resistance was definitely the broken bucket dessert. The friendly waiter placed a few banana leaves on our table and started to construct our dessert in front of our very own eyes. There was a fantastic combination of flavours and ingredients; passion fruit and mulberry foam, coconut cream, sticky rice, roasted nuts. Once a Jackson Pollock style piece of edible art was created, the waiter then brought out a half chocolate dome with which he filled with dry ice before giving a countdown from three.

After the countdown was finished he flipped the dome onto the banana leaves where it smashed into shards - a broken ‘bucket.’ Inside the bucket there was little coconut pancakes with shredded coconut. To be honest, the dessert didn’t taste half as good as the mango sticky rice but for the theatrics it was definitely worth getting. It was a memorable dessert and really good fun.

The Price?

Overall, our three course lunch for two including two cocktails cost 3620 Baht or £96.76/$117.76. Quite a pricey lunch but these are the price you’d expect to pay at one of the best restaurants in the whole of Asia. The restaurant does do a range of set menus which are better value for money and are certainly worth looking over.

Overall?

Lunch at Issaya Siamese Club was one of my best dining experiences throughout my travels across Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. The decor, ambience, service, drinks, and food were all of a high standard and I wouldn’t be surprised if the restaurant is awarded a Michelin Star in the coming years.

If you’re in Bangkok, Issaya Siamese Club is a must try restaurant and if you do it will be a dining experience you won’t forget in a hurry.