Latest news with #JohnChantarasak
Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Just One Dish: John Chantarasak
Being awarded a Michelin star is impressive enough. Being awarded one in the first three months of the restaurant opening is almost unfathomable. But, as the chef John Chantarasak has proved, not started off as somewhat of a nomadic restaurant. Having hopped around London — teasing customers with various pop-ups — in the autumn of 2024, the restaurant (owned by Chantarasak and his wife) finally found its ideal home in the heart of Marylebone. According to the Britain-born chef, 'Anglothai is essentially centred around the two sides of my heritage — my father is from Bangkok and my mother is from the UK.' Chantarasak has made quite the career switch. He started his working life as a musician. He then moved into the finance world. It was in 2013, when he found himself unfulfilled by the corporate hustle, that he loaded up his backpack and went on a journey of self-discovery around America. Quickly realising that his decisions on destinations were boiling down to restaurants to visit or dishes to try, he signed himself up for a culinary course in Bangkok. After various kitchen jobs around Thailand, he made his way back to England, where he got a job at the award-winning Som Saa restaurant. He worked there for five years, before spreading his wings and flying into his Anglothai venture. Chantarasak is into field-to-fork and nose-to-tail cooking. His culinary body clock follows the seasonal calendar, so often inspiration for his dishes begins with what's growing in Britain at the time. From there he uses Thai recipes and cooking techniques to create a unique fusion food with a minimal-waste grandmother, who influenced this seasonality mindset, would often cook quintessentially Thai dishes for the whole family. This prawn rice recipe was one of them. Watch the video to learn how to make it yourself. Serves 2 • 1 large eggs, beaten with a pinch of salt, caster sugar and ground white pepper• 1 tbsp garlic, peeled and chopped• 1 tbsp coriander root, cleaned and chopped (or coriander stem)• 1 tbsp Thai bird's eye chillies, chopped• 1/4 tsp salt• 2 tbsp prawn paste (aka shrimp paste)• 2 tbsp palm sugar• 2 tbsp vegetable oil• 400g cooked jasmine rice, cooled to room temperature 1. Smear a shallow nonstick pan with oil and pour in enough of the beaten egg mix to coat the bottom of the pan with a thin layer. Cook gently and without colour over a medium heat. It should resemble the thickness of a pancake. Turn once and cook on both sides. When set, remove from the pan, repeat this process until all the egg mixture is used. Allow the egg pancakes to cool, then roll into a cigar and slice into ribbons. 2. Pound the garlic, coriander root, chillies and salt into a smooth paste in a pestle and mortar. Add the prawn paste and palm sugar, pound into the paste until smooth. 3. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok and fry the paste until fragrant and aromatic. Continue to simmer over a low heat until reduced slightly to a thick paste, about 2 minutes.4. Add the cooked jasmine rice and stir-fry gently with the prawn paste so the rice is evenly coated but the rice grains remain whole. Try not to let too much of the rice catch as it fries. It should taste rich, pungent and well seasoned, but not overly salty. Add more sugar if you feel it's too salty. Cover and allow to rest off the heat for 5 minutes for the flavours to develop.5. To serve, divide the prawn paste rice among individual plates, then add a small pile of each of the accompaniments below and season with the lime wedges. For the Mu waan (sweet pork, to serve as an accompaniment) • 3 tbsp light soy sauce• 1 tsp caster sugar• 350g pork belly (or shoulder/neck)• 5 tbsp (135g) palm sugar• 3 tbsp fish sauce• 2 tbsp water• 1 star anise, toasted• 1 inch cassia bark, toasted 1. Combine the light soy sauce and caster sugar, then massage this all over the pork belly and leave to marinade for 2 hours.2. Steam the pork over a medium heat until tender, about 30 minutes. Allow to cool then slice the pork into bite-sized pieces, about 3cm by 1cm.3. In a saucepan melt the palm sugar over a low heat until liquid. Briefly simmer for 2 minutes to darken and caramelise the sugar then add the fish sauce and water. Reduce the heat to very low.4. Add the sliced pork, star anise and cassia bark. Mix everything so the pork is well coated in the caramel. Cover with a cartouche then simmer gently until the caramel is slightly reduced and the pork is shiny, about 10 minutes. Allow the pork to rest in the caramel for a further 10 minutes before warming and serving. • 1 small Granny Smith apple, cut into matchsticks (placed in water with half the juice of a lime to prevent the apple from browning) • 1 baby cucumber, peeled with seeds removed and chopped • 2 tbsp baby shallot, thinly sliced • 3 lemongrass stalks, root and outer husks removed and thinly sliced • 3 tbsp fine green beans, topped and tailed then cut into 1cm lengths • 3 tbsp radish, chopped • 2 tbsp coriander, roughly chopped leaf and stem • 1 tbsp Thai bird's eye chillies, finely sliced • 3 tbsp dried prawns, deep-fried until crispy and drained on absorbent paper • Mu waan (sweet pork, see recipe above) • Egg ribbons (see first step of making the prawn paste rice above) • 1 lime, cut into wedges
Time Out
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
A Michelin star London restaurant has created a burger for Shake Shack
Marylebone 's very tasty AngloThai is getting stuck into fast food. For one day only, the Michelin star restaurant is collab-ing with Shake Shack to release a special, limited edition burger. Its skilled head chef and co-founder John Chantarasak has created the special menu item by artfully bringing together an Aberdeen Angus beef burger fried in red curry paste, which is then topped with ox tongue glazed in scallop roe and smoked chilli jam, before some wild garlic and green olive purée is added, alongside som tam infused pickles. Gosh. The whole thing is served on a toasted potato bun brushed with spiced honey butter. It'll be available on July 11 at the Covent Garden branch of Shake Shack only, from 12pm until they sell out. You'll also be able to order some laab spiced fries; crinkle cut fries seasoned with a laab spice blend, and topped with fermented yellow soybean mayonnaise and wild garlic sweet chilli relish. AngloThai opened at the end of 2024, and won its first Michelin star within months of launching. The restaurant fuses Thai flavours with British, seasonal ingredients. Time Out gave it a glowing five star review, and praised its 'reimagining [of] some of Thailand's most celebrated dishes via the lens of fastidious fine dining'. 'As a long-time admirer of Shake Shack, I'm thrilled to be creating my very own burger and fries that showcase the bold flavours and ingredients we like to cook with on our menus at AngloThai,' says Chantarasak. 'I'm a big fan of the mustard-fried burger technique seen in America and wanted to take inspiration from this by frying beef fat red curry paste into the burger patty as it sizzles on the plancha, giving a rich and warming flavour to the meat. I'm also grilling slices of beef tongue and glazing them in a Thai-style chilli jam made from roasted chillies and smoked scallop roes, giving the burger deep umami and celebrating a lesser used, but very delicious cut of beef.' Net proceeds from the sales of the AngloThai burger and fries will go towards north London food charity and agroecological farm, Grow.
Daily Mail
03-05-2025
- Daily Mail
A Thai restaurant without rice? This Michelin star hotspot is serving up something entirely unique
It's a brave chef who opens a Thai restaurant that doesn't serve rice. But then AngloThai is no ordinary Thai restaurant, rather a place, according to chef and co-proprietor John Chantarasak, that is 'rooted in Thailand ', but 'uniquely British'. You can say that again. If you come expecting fiery larbs, pungent priks and fragrant curries, you'll leave disappointed. Because AngloThai is something else altogether, with cooking that mixes the haute with the hearty, the traditional with the cutting edge. The room is dim and warm and lovely, imbued with the sort of atmosphere that is born, not made. Despite opening only a few months back, it feels like it's been here for ever. Chantarasak's wife, co-owner Desiree, looks after front of house, as well as the (rather excellent) wine list, and there's very much a family feel to the restaurant – service straddles that fine line between the professional and sweetly personal. After being awarded a Michelin star in February, there is only a set menu. But don't let that put you off. The atmosphere is more local bistro than purse-lipped mausoleum. And while the presentation may be pretty, this is all about the flavour. There's Carlingford oyster, drenched in a crimson fermented chilli and sea-buckthorn sauce. It has a sly heat and bracing sharpness, but allows the briny sweetness of the oyster to shine. Exmoor caviar and Brixham crab, pretty as a hidden Devon cove, are served alongside a crisp black cracker, shaped like a flower and flavoured with coconut ash. The artistry is incredible, but there's a cool purity to the flavours, the very essence of the English sea. Salted beef cheek is spoon-soft and mellow, served on brioche, and anointed with a gently citric makrut-lime curry. Next come slices of Chalkstream trout, doused in a chlorophyll-green chilli sauce. The dish is not so much about heat as perfectly judged acidity; delicate crunch comes from paper-thin slices of radish. A lozenge of sirloin steak, cooked rare, sits alongside a startlingly intense blob of peppercorn curry. Instead of rice, kernels of tender barley, transformed from dull to lusty by a judicious coating of beef fat. AngloThai may be more Anglo (and French) than Thai, but this is sophisticated, ambitious, highly intelligent cooking that's both quietly thrilling and utterly unique.
