Chef Davide Garavaglia didn't start with a recipe. He started with a garden.
That's the premise behind “Tribute to the Tomato,” the limited-time tasting menu (B8,000) now running at Côte by Mauro Colagreco at Capella Bangkok, winner of this year's No.1 spot at Top Tables. The menu is part of a global initiative running across Colagreco's restaurants worldwide, each one a meditation on what fine dining looks like when it takes its cues from nature rather than trend.
In Bangkok, the person charged with translating that philosophy into eight courses is Head Chef Garavaglia, whose ingredient-driven cooking draws equally from the sunlit spirit of the French Riviera and the produce cultivated in Colagreco's legendary permaculture gardens at Mirazur in Menton.
The tomato, it turns out, is a very good vehicle for all of this. With more than 12,000 identified varieties grown around the world, it is at once deeply familiar and endlessly variable, which is precisely the point. A table display of heirloom specimens greets you as you sit down: a purple-black Krimea the size of a grapefruit, a striated green zebra, a vivid orange beefsteak, and a handful of cherry varieties in yellow and red. They're there to look at, not eat, but the message lands clearly before a single dish arrives.
The meal opens with three small bites. A Black Krimea meringue with Japanese sardines and garlic flowers is light and faintly briny. A vine tomato chutney with cockles and mustard has more edge. The standout is a heart beef tart topped with goat cheese and a crown of borage blossoms, its vivid purple petals arranged on the blue-washed plate like something between a jewel and a terrarium.
Before the menu proper begins, a sharing bread arrives in a terracotta bowl set on a cork-rimmed platter, its dough scored into segments like a flower. Alongside it, a small cup of geranium-infused olive oil that has no business smelling as good as it does.
The first full course brings a clam shell to the table, its lid lifted to reveal paper-thin rounds of green zebra tomato layered with Brittany brown crab and coriander. The translucency of the tomato is the first real surprise of the afternoon, each slice almost jade-like against the white of the vessel. It's bright, clean, and deceptively complex.
Things grow richer as the menu progresses. A BBQ cherry tomato with langoustine, morel and saffron arrives on one of the kitchen's striking blue-washed plates: a whole crustacean draped over a compressed tomato sphere, flanked by charred morels, the whole thing lacquered in vivid saffron emulsion. It's the kind of dish that quiets a table.
The heartbeef "grilled leather" course is delivered beneath a smoking cloche of fresh herbs and fig leaves, its theatre earning its keep when the lid is lifted and aromatic smoke curls upward. What it reveals is an intensely lacquered rectangle of octopus bao resting against basil, its deep glaze catching every angle of the surface. Intensely savoury, with enough textural contrast to hold your attention from the first bite to the last.
The Iberico pork rack with romesco and fig leaf is the most straightforward course on paper, which is probably why it lands so cleanly. Thin slices of pork rest in a pool of amber romesco scattered with slivered almonds and bright sea buckthorn pearls. Fat and acidity in precise balance.
A round of caramelised pastry arrives loaded with mulberries, elderberries and red shiso, a glossy quenelle of mascarpone at its centre pooling into the warm base. Rich, earthy and just sweet enough. Then comes the San Marzano soufflé, dusted in deep red tomato powder and served with a spoonful of house-made raspberry ketchup, closing the loop on the menu's central obsession with characteristic wit.
The wine pairing (B5,000) is thoughtful throughout: a Dhondt-Grellet Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs to open, Claude Riffault's Sancerre Les Boucauds through the middle courses, a volcanic Listán Negro from Tenerife with the meat, and a Petit Manseng Doux to close. Each selection holds its own without upstaging the food.
The meal ends with petits fours and a small tube of artisanal tomato sauce to take home. It's a nice touch, and a fair summary of what Tribute to the Tomato is: serious cooking worn lightly, with enough personality to make you smile on the way out.
Côte by Mauro Colagreco, Capella Bangkok, 300/2 Charoen Krung Rd., 02 098 3888. Open Wed-Sun noon-2pm, 6-10pm.
