Bangkok’s First Michelin Guide Gives a Star to Jay Fai

The first Michelin Guide to Bangkok was released on 6 December 2017. It gave stars to 17 restaurants: three with two stars, fourteen with one and none with three. The name that travelled furthest was that of a cook in her seventies who works over charcoal in ski goggles.

Jay Fai

Supinya Junsuta, known as Jay Fai, runs an open-fronted shophouse restaurant on Maha Chai Road in the old town. She cooks every dish herself over charcoal braziers, wearing goggles against the heat and the spitting oil. Her crab omelette, a thick roll filled with lump crab meat, and her drunken noodles and crab curry cost several times the price of ordinary street food, and regulars had argued about whether they were worth it for years. The star settled the argument and created queues of several hours. A reservation by email, made weeks ahead, is now the practical way to eat there.

The two-star restaurants

Gaggan, Gaggan Anand’s progressive Indian restaurant, was then in the middle of its four-year run at the top of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. Le Normandie, the French restaurant of the Mandarin Oriental, has overlooked the Chao Phraya since 1958. Mezzaluna, on the 65th floor of the lebua hotel, serves a French menu with Japanese precision under chef Ryuki Kawasaki.

The one-star list

Thai cooking was represented by Bo.lan, Chim by Siam Wisdom, Nahm, Paste, Saneh Jaan, Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin and Jay Fai. The European restaurants included Sühring, the German restaurant of twins Thomas and Mathias Sühring, along with L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, J’aime by Jean-Michel Lorain, Elements and Savelberg. Ginza Sushi Ichi was the one Japanese restaurant. The guide also gave 35 Bib Gourmands, many to street-food stalls and shophouse kitchens.

What followed

The guide was supported by the Tourism Authority of Thailand and expanded in later years to Phuket, Chiang Mai, the north-east and the south. Bangkok waited until the 2025 edition for its first three-star restaurant, Sorn. Sühring, a one-star in this first list, became the second a year later. Jay Fai has kept her star in every edition since.