Dining · Bangkok
Gaggan
Gaggan Anand's emoji-menu tasting experience of progressive Indian cooking. No. 1 in Asia's 50 Best 2025, No. 3 in 2026.
Gaggan is the restaurant of Gaggan Anand, the Indian chef who trained in the experimental kitchen of elBulli in Spain and went on to make progressive Indian cooking one of the most talked-about ideas in world gastronomy. Few chefs in Asia have shaped the region’s fine dining conversation as much, and few restaurants have been ranked as consistently at the top.
The current restaurant is the second chapter of the name. The original Gaggan opened in Bangkok in 2010 and closed on 24 August 2019. Anand reopened soon after under the name Gaggan Anand, and in 2024 the restaurant returned to being simply Gaggan.
A record of rankings
The first Gaggan led Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants four years in a row, a run that ended with its fourth consecutive win in 2018. It reached No. 4 in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019, and it was awarded two stars in Bangkok’s first Michelin Guide, published in December 2017.
The new restaurant has proved just as successful. Gaggan was named No. 1 in Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025, and in the 2026 edition it placed No. 3 and received the award for The Best Restaurant in Thailand. Anand’s second Bangkok venue, Gaggan at Louis Vuitton, ranked No. 8 the same year.
The experience
Dinner is a single long tasting menu of around twenty-five small courses. Famously, the menu card lists the dishes as emojis rather than words, a device Anand uses to cut across languages and to keep each course a surprise. The flavours start from India and travel freely through other culinary traditions, and the elBulli background shows in the playfulness of textures and forms.
The pacing is closer to a show than a conventional dinner, with a rapid sequence of small bites and a team that is very present in the room. It is intense, often witty and designed to be talked about afterwards.
Why OKYTO recommends it
Gaggan remains the most inventive table in Bangkok, and one of the few restaurants anywhere that has stayed at the top of the rankings across two distinct incarnations. For travellers who enjoy cooking as theatre, with a clear personal voice behind it, it is essential. Seats are limited, so book well ahead.
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