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BANGKOK
A restaurant review of the MICHELIN-starred INDDEE in Bangkok. All images are courtesy of Adam Thompson | CSP Times.
Inddee is a modern Indian restaurant that blends tradition with innovation, offering a refined yet understated dining experience.
At the helm of this operation is Sachin Poojary, a chef who does not so much move between culinary worlds as bend them to his will. Previously based in Mumbai, he was the head chef at Wasabi by Morimoto, a Japanese fine-dining institution where his razor-sharp precision earned him a Michelin star in under six months – an almost unheard-of feat. He has brought some of his team from India to Bangkok, and with them, a level of discipline and creativity that makes Inddee feel like less of a restaurant and more of a culinary expedition.
A Space With a Story
Inddee occupies a space that carries a certain mythology of its own. This was once the home of Gaggan, the restaurant that defined modern Indian gastronomy in Bangkok. The two-storey historical building has been transformed, its arches connecting the past with the present, its lighting lifting entire structures into weightlessness.
Downstairs, two open kitchens hum with activity, while a wine cellar and an illuminated garden frame the scene. A mango tree, half-shrouded in fog, anchors the space like something out of a fever dream. Upstairs, the dining experience is divided into two realms – one enclosed in a glasshouse, the other unfolding beneath a vaulted ceiling, where a live cooking station stands at its centre like an altar to fire and steel. Everything about Inddee’s design – its branding, its uniform, even the typography of its menu – has been considered to the point where you feel less like a diner and more like a participant in something carefully orchestrated.
A Menu That Reads Like a Historical Epic
Poojary’s nine-course tasting menu is structured as a journey through Indian cuisine, told with an anthropologist’s precision and a poet’s soul.
It begins, appropriately, at the beginning.
The first course, Before Chillies, is a reconstruction of India’s pre-Portuguese spice profile – a dish built entirely without the ubiquitous chilli, using the more ancient heat of long pepper and ginger. The result is a fascinating recalibration of what we think of as ‘Indian spicing,’ proving that history does, in fact, have a flavour.
Then, Goa. When the Portuguese Came is a carabinero, grilled and swathed in the piquant embrace of recheado, that bold, vinegar-laced masala the Portuguese left behind. A Goan cebiche mirrors its acidity, ensuring that the dish does not merely speak of history, but of the collision of cultures that defines Indian cuisine.
From there, Mumbai, where Odd One Out pays homage to the legendary Butter Pepper Garlic Crab, here reimagined with a saline sake-brined Spanish blue crab, its sweetness amplified by the simplest of elements: butter, garlic chives, and the warmth of Tellicherry pepper.
Later, in Awadh, the king who once demanded a kebab so soft it could be eaten without teeth is given his due with The Loving King – a Foie Gras Galouti Kebab that melts on the tongue with indecent ease.
The final savoury course allows diners a choice. The Chicken Khurchan is an ode to the ancient Indian practice of scraping the caramelised remains of a feast from the pot, while Yesterday’s Rice reimagines Tamil Nadu’s probiotic-rich curd rice, here fermented with yuzu and paired with grilled eel. And for those willing to venture into the mountains of Himachal, the Highlander’s Marinade presents New Zealand baby lamb, kissed by fire and anointed with a black salt and herb paste that tastes of earth and air.
The final courses continue this intellectual exercise. A rose-scented Falooda, honouring the Parsi immigrants who once sweetened Gujarat with their desserts. And then, in Kashmir, the Gucci Hunt, where rare morels – once foraged by villagers after the winter thaw – are transformed into a honey-glazed, nut-stuffed wonder.
The Wines, The Spirits, The Sommelier Who Ties It All Together
The beverage programme at Inddee is no less impressive than the food. Head sommelier Thanakorn “Jay” Bottorff, the first Thai recipient of the Michelin Sommelier Award, oversees a wine pairing designed to highlight terroir as much as taste. For those seeking adventure, the Beverage Pairing Experience incorporates sake, umeshu, and beer, crafting a more dynamic dialogue between glass and plate.
The Verdict
Inddee is a distillation of history, a challenge to assumptions, and an unflinching love letter to the complexity of Indian cuisine. In a city where Indian food is too often understood in the broad strokes of butter chicken and naan, Inddee does something altogether braver.
It reminds you that Indian cuisine is not one thing – it is a thousand histories, a million stories, and nine remarkable courses that refuse to be forgotten.
Location: 68, 1 Soi Langsuan, Lumphini, Pathum Wan, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10330, Thailand | Website: inddeebkk.com | Phone: +66 62 812 9696 | Email: reservations@inddeebkk.com | Instagram: @inddeebkk
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