Italian Updated: Italics Restaurant Bangkok Opens

While most fine dining restaurants serving up international cuisines boast of importing everything they cook from lands afar, Bangkok’s latest opening, Italics, sources 100 percent of its produce from Thailand — a long and painstaking process, we’re told but, nevertheless, one that proudly supports local farmers and the diverse range of produce available in Thailand.

The concept for this contemporary Italian restaurant was conceived by Michelin-starred chef, James Noble of Aleenta Hua Hin-Pranburi Resort & Spa. His talent for Mediterranean cuisine and love of Thai ingredients — as well as a fondness for organic, sustainable and fresh ingredients, merged to create this innovative Italian menu in which Italian classics are deconstructed and reimagined — think edamame stuffed dough balls, ceviche fish & chips with coconut mayonnaise and wild mushroom & tarragon calzone with spicy ricotta.

Even the cocktail menu utilises local flavours in an unusual way — one cocktail has a buffalo milk base. Authentic flavours aren’t radically changed and never jar, but rather they’re given a little Thai punctuation — a Caprese salad with Thai basil simply adds a little bite to the classic dish. Even the most staunch Italian cuisine lover can’t fail to be impressed at Noble’s seamless interlacing of two very different cuisines.

The relaxed venue, right in the heart of Soi Ruamrudee, is refreshingly low key in style when compared to Bangkok’s other Michelin-starred chef’s openings. A surprising, but very entertaining addition to the night is the pizza chef, who — if asked — will entertain with a spot of table side pizza dough flaring.

The restaurant is currently in its soft opening stage, and is gearing up for its official opening on 29 April. In the same building, and unaffiliated store is also preparing to open, which will reportedly be home to Bangkok’s biggest whiskey and cigar selection, which is rumoured to open in May.

A sister restaurant in the new Akyra Manor Chaing Mai is also opening this year, which will be the hotel’s flagship restaurant, with a show kitchen, authentic Italian pizza ovens and a rooftop pool bar, Rise.

Italics, 63/3 Soi Ruamrudee, Pathumwan, Bangkok, www.italicsrestaurant.com

(Source: Lifestyle Asia)