Some restaurateurs are just too smart — or simply don't understand what they're talking about — when they refer to their businesses as something like "trendy" or "a culinary sanctuary".
The one-year-old eating establishment is set amid a spacious tropical garden in a carefully renovated, 90-year-old former Dinsor Palace.
The one-year-old eating establishment is set amid a spacious tropical garden in a carefully renovated, 90-year-old former Dinsor Palace.
Observing Bangkok's restaurant scene for the past 14 years has taught me not to excite easily when coming across such decorative phrases.
Braised beef short ribs with potato puree, buttered carrots and truffle-infused gravy. photos: Pawat Laopaisarntaksin
But to call The Gardens, located at the historic Dinsor Palace, a tranquil oasis — and its cuisine a dining escape — is not too far from the truth.
Located only a few steps down a private soi from bustling Sukhumvit, the restaurant is set amid a spacious tropical garden in a carefully renovated, 90-year-old European-style mansion, once a residence of Her Royal Highness Princess Ramphai Prapa.
Crispy-skin salmon on a brandade cake with lemon crème fraiche.
The original elegance is preserved to exude a sense of nostalgic serenity, and selection of fairy tale pets — Fuzzy Lop rabbits, white Indian peacocks and graceful gliding swans which populate the shady garden helps lend a casual relaxing mood to the stylish, one-year-old eating establishment.
The Gardens is led by Seattle-born executive chef Autumn McTaggart.
The amiable McTaggart is a master at combining classic French cooking techniques with new flavours. She also loves to use produce from local farms and the restaurant's own hydroponic vegetable garden.
McTaggart's dinner menu is not extensive, but is impressively well-crafted. All of the dishes we tried during last week's visit proved blissful.
Grilled asparagus salad with Chèvre cheese (320 baht) provided a lovely debut to her contemporary Western cooking. It's a clean jumble of lightly charred asparagus, endive and green oak lettuce, sprinkled with fragrant balsamic dressing, delicate morsels of goat cheese, roasted hazelnuts and paper-thin prosciutto slices.
Pan-seared foie gras with passion fruit gastrique on a thymeseethed waffle.
The light and refreshing salad was followed by a luxurious and truly delicious plate of pan-seared foie gras with passion fruit gastrique (590 baht). Two generous slabs of duck liver, perfectly seared to offer silky interior underneath a slightly crusty casing, arrived on a thyme-seethed, yeast-fermented waffle with zesty sweet passion fruit sauce. The house-made waffle, yielding a crispy exterior and chewy centre, superbly complemented the foie gras.
Another distinctive starter, which might well have served as a light main dish, was the duck confit and oyster mushroom tart (330 baht). Served piping hot, the flaky and buttery pastry with a poached duck egg topping was revealed inside a flavourful mixture of chopped, fried duck meat and clingy mushrooms, which intermingled sumptuously with the lava-like egg yolk.
The lovely dinner progressed to a greater satisfaction when it was time for the main course.
You will not regret having the seared scallops with preserved-lemon risotto, herb salad and chive oil (490 baht). On top of the al dente and creamy, well-cooked risotto, the jumbo scallops boasted a supple texture and fresh, naturally sweet taste. It's easy to see that McTaggart loves cooking with the citrus. Her risotto nicely exhibited the flavour of the house-preserved lemon, with fresh orange pulp adding a sweet finish.
Another dish worth having is the crispy-skin salmon on brandade cake with lemon crème fraîche (470 baht). Normally, I am not a fan of salmon steak — when compared with its sashimi counterpart, it usually presents a rather banal mouthfeel. But this particular dish impressively showcased a generous fillet of fish that wasn't at all overcooked. Instead it possessed succulent meat that nicely retained the salmon's flavour profile. The lightly seasoned fish was complemented by rich lemon cream sauce and olive oil-poached cherry tomatoes.
As a group of discerning beef fans who won't settle for less than top-notch, we were truly delighted by red wine braised beef short ribs (570 baht), the restaurant's most recommended dish. Served on a silky bed of potato purée with buttered carrots, aromatic Italian parsley and truffle oil-infused gravy, the beef was very tender yet still provided a heavenly chew.
When asked, it didn't take me more than two seconds to come up with my favourite dish of the evening — the seared black cod and lacquered pork belly with soy sesame reduction (550 baht).
The dish is McTaggart's genuinely creative yet simply sumptuous rendering of surf & turf, showcasing a glossy stack of plump fish fillets, with its characteristic sweet fatty taste, and a super soft and juicy slab of pork belly on a bed of sautéed spinach and creamy cauliflower purée, perfumed with orange zest.
We also sampled a dish from the dozen-item lunch menu, and were happy with house-roasted turkey sandwich (260 baht). Accompanied by lightly dressed rocket salad, the sandwich offered flavoursome slices of turkey with Parmesan, pesto and sun-dried cranberries on whole wheat bread.
As an establishment that doubles as a bakery, dessert choices were plenty. The New York cheesecake with caramelised rum pineapple, coconut tuile, pineapple curd and basil foam (160 baht), and the spinach cheesecake with bacon crust and pumpkin purée (150 baht) were magnificent. And don't forget to grab a few chocolate oatmeal cookies (50 baht each), which proved the best in town, for takeaway.
The Gardens
Between Sukhumvit Soi 59 and 61
Call 02-714-2112 and 093-124-7730
Open daily, 11am-2.30pm and 5-10.30pm
Park on the premises
Most credit cards accepted
