IGNIV by Andreas Caminada at St Regis Hotel (Bangkok, THAILAND) ★★★☆☆

Our last official lunch of this trip took us to IGNIV, a Michelin starred restaurant located on the ground floor of St Regis Bangkok. It is the brainchild by Swiss-born chef Andreas Caminada, highly touted as one of the best chefs the country has ever produced. We had the pleasure of meeting him in person back in 2017 when we dined at his three-Michelin-starred restaurant Schloss Schauenstein and it remains one of the most memorable culinary experience for me ever.

IGNIV, literally meaning bird’s nest, operates quite differently from a typical fine-dining restaurant. Their menu offers a variety of modern European dishes served in innovative tapas-style portions with many of those meant to be shared among a small group.

We went with their “Lunch Break” menu, an omakase-style offering where the chefs curate a mix of canapés, starters, mains and desserts for us.  

Some small canapés to kick off the meal before we even placed our orders. The first to arrive was a lettuce cornet with lettuce ice-cream, grilled lettuce and capsicum purée in the middle. A mix of savory-sweet flavors for a nice refreshing start.

This was followed by three other canapés, first a white asparagus tart with miso and leeks featuring some really nice textures from the shaved asparagus. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of white asparagus from Golden Hill in northeastern part of Thailand.

Next up, a tartlet with diced Japanese mackerel wrapped by a small sheet of radish. The mackerel came with some subtle smokiness (charcoal?). 

Last but not least, and my favorite canapé from this group – a brioche topped with caviar, crème fraiche and dabs of chives purée. The brioche was actually a round-shaped madeleine; and not surprisingly, its pillowy texture was a strong match with the saltiness of the caviar, lovely acidity of the crème fraiche and earthy notes of the chives. 

Green and white asparagus, morel, truffle – The assortment of green and white asparagus came from Golden Hills of Thailand again. They formed a formidable partnership with the morel mushrooms and a truffle sauce which was spot on.

Salmon, roes, cucumber – The slightly torched salmon fillet and pickled cucumber were served on a pool of vegetal sauce with salmon roes. I was surprised (not pleasantly) by the sharp acidity of the cucumber and greenish sauce, which I thought could have been toned down a bit.

Scallop, orange – The refreshing scallop ceviche has been marinated with a sauce made with orange. Not bad. 

At this point, we were offered a collection of olive brioche and French baguette with yoghurt butter served on the side.

After a pretty impressive array of small bites, followed by a nice parade of starters tapas-style, here comes the main dishes, also in small portions.

Pork cheek, sunchoke, hazelnut – The succulent pork cheek simmered in a light pork consommé was paired with variations of sunchoke (I originally thought that was Jerusalem artichoke) and hazelnut. Some mildly sweet and bitter flavors on top of the savory pork, finished off by some nuttiness from the hazelnut. Pretty nice.

Cabbage, chilli, kale, kimchi – A cabbage roll with shredded purple cabbage, chilli and kale inside, topped nicely by some crunchy kimchi.

Gnocchi, mushroom(?) – Homemade cheese gnocchi served with a sauce made with what I thought was mushroom. This has been a problem throughout the meal as we had multiple servers coming up to explain the dishes for us but with their strong ascent, we had trouble getting a grasp of the ingredients from time to time (similar problem from Suhring last night as well, and they had so many different ingredients in a single dish).

Onto dessert now, this was obviously the weakest link…..

Fig, macadamia – Probably the most successful of the three desserts. The fig ice-cream,

macadamia purée and macadamia nuts were all fairly tasty (I love fig and macadamia) but they didn’t seem to integrate well together. 

Peach, passion fruit, tapioca – What’s there not to like about a tropical themed dessert, right? There was a bit of excessive acidity in the dish and the slices of local peach were just not nearly ripe enough.

70% chocolate mousse, cascara, rose – The fruity and herbal notes from cascara and floral notes from rose were both very nice but I didn’t think the chocolate mousse (also locally sourced?) lived up to expectation.

A very interesting meal with its ups and downs for sure. While I like the canapés, and some starters and main dishes (sorry, didn't like the three desserts), there were too many average ones towards the tail end of the feast. The cooking techniques were definitely there but the overall balance of the omakase menu seemed lacking, most notably with the absence of meat and seafood towards the end. Last time I checked (with the new restaurant manager), I was told that the dishes from "Lunch Break" primarily came from the a la carte menu (which would provide a balanced mix of meat, seafood and vegetarian dish) but unfortunately, this didn't turn out to be the case. In fact, none of the dish was.

Food Rating: 6.4/10

Price: ฿฿฿฿

Address: G/F St Regis Bangkok, 159 Rajadamri Road, Bangkok, Thailand

Closest BTS Station: Rajadamri

Tel: +66 (0) 2207-7822

Website: www.ignivbangkok.com

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 3:00pm, 6:00pm - 11:00pm daily