At your service

The Blue Elephant’s Chef’s Service delivers
culinary satisfaction of a rare sort

A flame suddenly flares upward and looks to be heading right for the ceiling in the Blue Elephant restaurant. It’s just one of the sights, sounds and smells thrilling the 10 guests watching Chef Chumpol Jangprai in action.

This new Chef’s Table service is now available for anyone who wants to impress friends and relatives with an up-close and personal dinner with a dashing chef. While many restaurants abroad allow customers to see how their food is made, Thailand’s heat and humidity often makes a visit to the kitchen undesirable. And making the specialities that please Thai palates is quite demanding.

“I used to cook for 500 or 600 people in restaurants abroad but this is much more exhausting,” says Chumpol as the meal takes shape before his hungry audience. “There’s a lot of work to be done in advance and we have to make sure that everything goes smoothly as the courses come in.”

Feeding off, and contributing to, Thai cuisine’s global reputation, Blue Elephant is one of a few Thai restaurants with branches in major cities around the world. In addition to Bangkok, Blue Elephants can be found in London, Paris, Brussels, New Delhi, Copenhagen, Dubai, Beirut, Lyon, Malta, Kuwait, Bahrain and Moscow.

While the flagship menu is refined Royal Thai cuisine, the restaurant never fails to be innovative with classic Thai recipes. For example, a signature dish at the three-year-old Bangkok branch is the ingenuously prepared grilled duck breast in tangy and sweet tamarind sauce.
 

“The Chef’s Table menu contains some of our signature dishes but they are subject to improvisation when the chef cooks for you at your table,” says Kitiya Pissathanporn, the restaurant’s sales and marketing manager.

Guests are welcome to pitch in and help the chef if they want to – not that it will get them a discount on the price of Bt4,400 per head.

 

“Please come and help me do this,” the chef requests an eager guest, balancing a glass of white wine in one hand while sprinkling finely julienned lemongrass on giant river prawns with the other. “And if you are not happy with the taste, tell me and I will make it the way you like it.”

Guests with different tastes can have the chef tone down or spice up their portions or otherwise alter the flavours to their specification. At our table, two picky people chose well-done lamb chops while the rest opted for the chef-recommended medium-rare.

“Relax, be yourself and tell me if the food is okay,” says the chef, taking a break after working hard on our delicious meal. “Wow, it’s good to sit down after all that cooking. But if you like the food, I have the energy to go on.”

There are plenty of dishes to select from in the Chef’s Table service, like the very Thai larb gai (spicy minced chicken salad), black chicken green curry on roti, crab-coriander pancake and grilled scallops, and grilled duck breast with passion fruit sauce.

You have to allow about two hours for the memorable culinary experience and the service has to be reserved at least a week in advance. It’s for groups of six to 10 people and is also available outside the restaurant, with the price varying according to your requirements.