The gobi parantha at restaurant Gaa — a bespoke dining experience in Bangkok, Thailand, curated by the eponymous Chef Garima Arora — has a separate fanbase. Calling it a dish would do it a disservice. Let’s instead describe it as a marriage between unleavened flatbread and savoury, spiced cauliflower filling; a ceremony that is graced by dollops of butter, the recipe for which was born in a particular kitchen cupboard in Delhi, where Chef Garima’s dadi (paternal grandmother) lived.

She recalls how the cupboard’s jhali (lattice) door allowed passersby a view of thick cream fermenting into butter in real time. She could spend hours feasting her eyes on it. The recipe for the cauliflower mix, meanwhile, comes from her nani (maternal grandmother). Guests at Gaa love the gobi parantha for its simplicity; but for Chef Garima, it resembles an umbilical link to her roots.

Albeit it isn’t her first instance of taking the soul of Indian food to a global culinary dais. For Chef Garima, it’s been a constant endeavour since her student days at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, followed by work in some of the world’s most esteemed kitchens, where she honed her craft under the tutelage of renowned chefs like Gordon Ramsay, and René Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagen.

Her wins — in 2018, Chef Garima made history as the first Indian female chef to earn a MICHELIN star, in 2019 she was named Asia’s Best Female Chef, and in 2023, her restaurant Gaa won its second MICHELIN Star — have only furthered her drive to assure Indian cuisine its moment in the sun.

The Gaa experience: Where contemporary Indian flavours meet Thai ingredients

Nestled in a 60-year-old baan ruen thai (traditional Thai home), in Bangkok’s Wattana area, Gaa plays host to a gastronomic delegation every day. The participants aren’t the sort you’d expect. Dressed in vibrant colours, and natives of different regions across Thai and Indian subcontinents, these herbs, spices, masalas, condiments, and vegetables convene to lend their expertise to the dishes of the day, which lie at the confluence of Indian and Thai cultures. They mark a coming-together of........

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