Gaa's Rising Star

Garima Arora is the first female Indian chef to earn a Michelin star.

- Anuradha Raghunathan

Garima Arora recalls making risotto at age 16 for her father’s dinner party at their Mumbai apartment. She didn’t cook the rice al dente and her father sent it back to the kitchen. Arora learned her lesson well, and now, at 32, is the first Indian woman chef to receive a Michelin star—in November last year—for her Bangkok restaurant Gaa. Since it opened in April 2017, Gaa has become one of the Thai capital’s hottest restaurants, attracting celebrity diners such as Hollywood director Michael Mann and Bollywood star Sunil Shetty.

Gaa’s website describes its dishes as being derived from “techniques from around the world” and using indigenous Thai ingredients. Serving only 10 or 14 set course menus, either regular or vegetarian versions, a typical menu might include duck doughnut and organic, burnt coconut sugar ice cream. Arora’s own favorite is crab in cold macadamia milk. “When you bite into the crab you are hit with the flavors of peppercorn and jaggery,” says Arora. “It embodies everything we’re trying to do here at Gaa.”

Her signature dish is inspired by the Indian street snack bhutta: grilled young corn, seasoned with black salt, chili and lime and then served with corn milk on the side for dunking. Another favorite is called simply “jackfruit,” and incorporates both ripe and unripe samples of the giant tropical fruit. The unripe fruit is served with pickles and an Indian bread made from ripe jackfruit.

For inspiration, Arora travels every two months to northern Thailand to source new ingredients. Among her more unusual finds: canistel (also known as eggfruit, similar to an avocado); hor wor (an herb with lemon verbena flavors) and salad root (a vegetable that looks like licorice).