It’s my birthday. I’m standing by myself in the middle of Gaggan, in front of a dessert that I’m about to desecrate with a hammer. In the background, WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion blasts on the speakers. I have an awkward choice to make. Either dance to this provocative 2020 hit where the two rappers brag about having well-lubricated… never mind. Or be the middle-aged prude this song makes me feel like I am and just smile and wave at the 14 pairs of eyes fixed on me. And in a nanosecond, I remember what Lee Ann Womack once said: “When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance”. But before I tell you how I got here, let me tell you about the man behind Gaggan – the restaurant ranked Asia’s number one by The World’s 50 Best.
Gaggan Anand has spent his career doing something incredibly rare: dismantling the rules of fine dining and rebuilding them in his own image. “I don’t use caviar anymore because it’s become overrated. It’s been put in everything from curry to noodles. It’s become an expensive item to signal fine dining. But that is not fine dining to me,” he tells us that night. Gaggan’s restaurants are not simply places to eat; they are stages for provocation, humour, memory, and rebellion. To dine at Gaggan is to be confronted, delighted, teased, and occasionally bewildered – and to leave with the sense that you’ve witnessed something closer to performance art than a tasting menu.
And this is not hyperbole. We’re escorted into the restaurant one person at a time. Once inside the darkly lit restaurant, you sit quietly while Gaggan and his team begin to get the restaurant ready for the culinary production. “It feels like we’re in that black comedy horror thriller, The Menu, with Ralph Fiennes. I’m not sure whether to be scared or fascinated,” says my former deputy editor Kate Wilson, who is sitting next to me. Later, when we get served ‘rat brain with goat filling’ which we must pour ‘blood’ onto, and are told we can only go to the toilet during the ‘intermission’, I realise that perhaps Kate had a point. Over the next two-to-three hours, through a 25-course meal served in five acts (India, Japan, Thailand, communal eating, and the grand finale), there will be loud music, singing, and banging on the impossibly pristine long stainless table. Gaggan has never revealed the ingredients in this creamy, delicate dish, but he assures us it’s not a rodent. Whether or not I believe him, it’s a stellar optical illusion of flavour. Here, all five senses are teased, cajoled, and pushed out of their comfort zones.
Reinventing Fine Dining
Born in Kolkata, Gaggan’s early life in India was shaped by music as much as food. He played in a rock band before entering the kitchen – a detail that explains much about his approach: the improvisation, the irreverence, the refusal to repeat himself. After training at the Taj Group and later staging at elBulli under Ferran Adrià, he carried forward a belief that cuisine should be emotional, surprising, and unafraid of chaos. When he opened Gaggan in Bangkok, he created a restaurant that felt like a manifesto.
From 2015 to 2018, Gaggan ranked seventh on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, a remarkable achievement for a restaurant that refused to conform to Eurocentric expectations of fine dining. In 2025, it placed third on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, reaffirming its status as a global benchmark for innovation. The Thailand Michelin Guide awarded it two stars in its inaugural edition, recognising not only technical mastery but a singular creative voice.
His collaborations have been equally influential. Gaggan has cooked with some of the world’s most daring chefs from Latin America to Japan, building a network of creative partnerships that reflect his belief in cross‑cultural exchange. His venture, Gaggan at Louis Vuitton in Bangkok, extends his philosophy into the realm of luxury fashion. The first Louis Vuitton restaurant in Southeast Asia, its dessert programme is curated by Dej Kewkacha, Gaggan’s award-winning, self-taught Thai pastry chef.
Gaggan is a sensory theatre, and he is the star. It’s a place where diners encounter dishes like truffle mushroom obulato, pork jowl vindaloo tacos, and squid shiso ice‑cream sandwiches. Each plate is a provocation, a joke, a memory, a dare. Behind the scenes, his team is essential to the alchemy. Wine becomes narrative, not accompaniment. Service becomes choreography. And music – the deftly curated soundtrack to this thriller.
The Making of a Collaboration
It was into this world that South African chef Ryan Cole stepped in November 2024, when he booked a table at Gaggan. Ryan, the executive chef and co-owner of Salsify at The Roundhouse, had long admired Gaggan’s work. After dinner, over a couple of beers, he asked the question that would spark an unexpected connection: had Gaggan ever been to Cape Town? He hadn’t. “I said, ‘Come cook with us’,” says Ryan. Gaggan’s response was immediate and characteristically unfiltered: “F**k ye.”
When Gaggan arrived in Cape Town in October 2025, he stepped into Salsify’s world of coastal light, native ingredients, and quiet precision. The evening became a dialogue between Bangkok’s anarchic creativity and Cape Town’s terroir‑driven elegance, with both teams working in rare synchronicity. For Gaggan, the experience was revelatory; he spoke openly about how Ryan had opened his eyes to the depth and diversity of South Africa’s culinary identity.
The connection did not end there. In February this year, the collaboration introduced Mzansi cuisine to Bangkok, this time at Mrs Maria & Mr Singh, one of Gaggan’s most personal restaurants. Here, Ryan cooked alongside Salsify’s head chef, Nina du Toit, in a space shaped by memory, sentiment, and the flavours of Gaggan’s childhood. The dinner, held on 22 February, doubled as Gaggan’s birthday celebration and as a showcase of “Thainess” – not as a trope, but as a living, expressive identity. The menu offered Bangkok diners a rare glimpse of Salsify’s spirit; it included short ribs with chakalaka, squid with uni, and a delicious perilla leaf taco with yellowtail and finger limes, which I enjoyed with a margarita.
For Ryan, cooking at Mrs Maria & Mr Singh, the Mexico-meets-India eatery, meant entering a different emotional register of Gaggan’s universe. Where Salsify had offered structure and South African terroir, Bangkok offered intimacy, nostalgia, and the quiet power of home cooking. The two dinners – one in Cape Town, one in Bangkok – ultimately revealed the depth of the relationship between the chefs. As Ryan put it, “It grows our community and gives everyone an opportunity to learn about different people, different cultures, and opens your world to new ways of thinking”.
Dining Without Phones
Back to the night of my birthday. I’m secretly thrilled that the day before, Gaggan had hosted us at his house for his birthday brunch. Resplendent in his iconic Hans Hopfer-designed Mah Jong by Roche Bobois sofa, I got to see his extensive vinyl collection – everything from The Gorillaz and Miles Davis to Run DMC and Nirvana. Being a Pisces myself, it was refreshing to experience Gaggan in his element, with his team holding court, serving cold matchas, and playing music at the highest decibel. By the time I got to the restaurant, I was prepared to shake what my mama gave me – to WAP – in front of strangers because that night in February would be one of the last times phones would be allowed during service at Gaggan. Since May, the restaurant has imposed a ‘no-phones policy’. As he put it on an Instagram post announcing the ban, “We will not allow cameras and phone usage during most of the meal… So the hard work put into creating the surprise is not ruined. We can disconnect and connect at the same time. So that we live the moment, so we can make memories”.
A bummer for Instagrammable moments, but a win for the present moment. And still, Gaggan shows no sign of slowing down. Even as collaborations carry him between continents, he continues to build new worlds of his own, most recently with Gaggan Hotel at Daimon Sake Brewery, set within the historic Daimon Brewery complex in Osaka’s Katano district. Conceived with his Gaggan Hotels co-founder Jason Friedman, the hospitality mind behind some of Asia’s most iconoclastic luxury experiences, and designed by architect Bill Bensley, the hotel extends his philosophy beyond the plate into a fully immersive narrative space where irreverent storytelling, emotional design, and culinary rebellion converge.
For a chef who has spent his life refusing to stand still, it feels like both a promise and a provocation: the man who reshaped Asian fine dining is now preparing to reshape the way we inhabit food, space, and experience itself.
From Kolkata to Bangkok to Cape Town and now Osaka, the world he’s building keeps expanding – and the chefs, diners, and dreamers who cross his path are pulled into its orbit, knowing that with Gaggan, the next chapter is always already on its way, written by a rebel who refuses to let the story behave.
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