Aksorn

From northern-Thai fine diners to hip bistros matching their pet-nats with Isaan-inspired bites, Bangkok’s dining scene has spent the past few years reveling in regional Thai recipes. But at one of his latest restaurants, Australian chef David Thompson, who during his tenure at Bangkok’s legendary Nahm restaurant earned the world’s first Michelin star for Thai cuisine, has taken a boldly different approach.

At Aksorn, on the dimly lit top floor of a concept store and gallery space along Charoenkrung Road, he cooks his way through time, drawing on recipes from a vast collection of mid-20th-century Thai cookbooks and culinary magazines, an era in which Western influences slowly began seeping into Thai kitchens.

From the room-spanning open kitchen, Thompson and his team serve up multi-course menus that could include everything from ma auan appetizers with steamed pork and prawn mousse to fiery curries and yum (salads) made with hard-to-find ingredients such as makok hog plum and grathin river tamarind. Most dishes arrive samrub-style—all at once with steamed rice, meant for sharing—served on vintage crockery with mismatched cutlery