Looks like Water Library Hospitality Group's (WLHG) gone and done it again. Its latest iteration – a sustainable straw sphinx arising from the ashes of The Water Library Thonglor after its home was redeveloped – is virtually reservations only after just a couple of months.
Located along the backstretch of Sukhumvit Soi 39, towards the junction with Soi 33, on the ground floor of a low-rise restaurant enclave with Hong Bao above, it's beyond sensible walking distance from Phrom Pong BTS but surrounded by umpteen high-rise condos and offers off-road parking.
The concept is that of a neighbourhood restaurant, the kind local folks barge into for some upscale comfort food and a glass of wine, and with its bold glass frontage divided from the choking road by a quaintly uneven drive-through shaded by a big tree, it certainly works on that level. It's not a panoramic view – you get that at home. But you can see everyone coming and going, the weather, the tree and the traffic, so it is indeed right neighbourly.
Décor-wise it's a kind of urban barn, complete with pots of vetiver grass sprouting from the ceiling between threads of hemp rope. Brick, timber, iron and stone, or faux renditions thereof, account for surfaces. Halogen-like lighting is designer milking shed. The glass-fronted kitchen commands the back space directly opposite the door, so you can see the chefs at work and say hello. And everything is currently seasonally set with blood red poinsettias.
But the ostensibly modest aspirations are contradicted by the cutting-edge culinary team – that which made the Thonglor restaurant such a smash, even when charging upwards of Bt6,600 a head. Don't worry, though, dishes at SEED start at Bt270, wine by the glass at Bt189 and by the bottle at Bt590.
With Singaporean Haikal Johari in overall command, as with all WLHG projects, SEED's on-site chefs' team includes passionately inspired Chef-GM Pakapat "Jao" Sakyaso and American Pastry Chef extraordinaire, Eric Petrie.
The single-page menu offers generously-proportioned salads, soups, pastas, fish & meat dishes, and palate-provoking desserts.
Helping to keep prices down is the core concept of using as much locally, organically-grown and/or sustainably-sourced produce as possible, which also has the advantage of freshness.
"It's all about creating simple dining pleasures, getting back to basics and cooking with a lot of love," says Haikal whose CV includes working in Michelin-star restaurants Joel Robuchon, Amador and Shimomura. Added to this is a mix of "French-inspired classics with Japanese and Asian flavours" liberally seasoned with the talented chefs' "youthfulness and individualism."
Besides the a la carte menu there are daily specials and tasting menus where the chefs' creativity is given free rein to great effect and new ideas for the main selections are first tested.
One such four-course composition, prefixed "let us surprise you", began with a medallion of monkfish liver and squid terrine swimming in miso sauce and counterpoised with green apple, crispy toast and wasbi pearls. The sweet sourness of the sauce proved the perfect complement to the distinctive fish. So far so stimulating.
Next was a nugget of Royal Project Trout cooked sousvide to a pie-like consistency while intensifying the fish's fine flavour by using its bones for the stock and blanching with coconut milk. Sauced with an original blend of beetroot juice and squid ink, complemented with strands of baby squid as al dente as the best dried pasta, and garnished with flower petals and savoy cabbage, this also put the taste buds on adventure alert.
Next was "Company B Pak Chong" beef – these days, along with its lamb, increasingly indistinguishable from the finest imported cuts – marinated with miso, braised and charcoal grilled to give a very even, tender and succulent consistency and a satisfying BBQ smokiness and stickiness. Lubricated with onion broth and enriched with caramalised onion, this too should find its way to the main menu.
The perfect adjunct to the three dishes proved to be green apple and celery sherbet juxtaposed with flourless yoghurt cake, walnut-flavoured Greek yogurt, and oatmeal crisps.
The set was priced at Bt1,900++.
Separate dishes of three complementary mignardises for each diner - a sugar snap filled with truffle ice cream, chocolate financier meringue, and a yuzu-passion fruit combination - commanded yet greater admiration.
Chef Eric further indulged the drooling cast of diners with a ravishing riff on the killer strawberry shortbread combination, juxtaposing vanilla cream, rose custard and strawberry sorbet with something akin to shortbread but crumblier and nuttier.
There were no let downs – even the bread basket of sundried tomato bread with a delightfully garlicky herbed butter was hard to resist.
A couple of items from the a la carte menu to have already earned signature status include smoked duck breast salad with orange caramelized onion dressing and cranberries. Another standout is organic lamb tartar with tomato chilli compote, goat cheese, herb mayonnaise. As is whole sea crab with black pepper, spaghettini and crab roe, a veritable mountain of spicy succulence that yet stops deftly short of smothering the crab, which is sensibly added separately at the last minute the better to retain its culinary integrity.
Word has travelled fast but the culture of constant creativity should see SEED continue to bloom for quite a while yet.
Open Tue-Sun, 5.30-12.00 midnight. Tel. 099 283 6363.
