The Chef & the Brigade

“I like to say that my cuisine is an emotive layering of flavours, textures and modern presentation, while remaining deeply grounded in the ingredients, techniques and authentic flavours of heirloom Thai cuisine. Or Lao cuisine for our Luang Prabang restaurant. After 32 years of Thai cooking, my passion is still to awaken people to the elegance of historical Thai cuisine, or to rediscover with me the true flavours of Lao cuisine. In all dishes I create, I like to coax maximum flavour from a given set of ingredients while ensuring that the flavour and personality of each individual component shines through brightly. None of this would be possible without constant, focused historical research, scouring through beautiful old cookbooks and journals to discover ingredients and techniques long forgotten. And then travelling to meet growers and suppliers and salt refiners across the many provinces of Thailand and Laos, where nearly-forgotten ingredients are still cultivated and foraged, and traditional techniques still produce incredible subterranean salts. Old flavours are resurrected, and then flow through a process of testing and refinement which both brings back the past, and also reinvents it.
I have a rebellious, creative personality, dedicated to learning what has created and influenced the amazing landscape of Thai culinary history, from the palaces, to the villages. It is this adventure-some spirit, fascination with fresh, high quality ingredients and respect for the culinary dynasty of the past which gives the dishes at Paste their uniqueness.”