Nigel Oakins

Before we get into the rankings, here’s a little history on the list. 12 years ago, Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants launched as an offshoot of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, which started life in London in 2002 as the brainchild of someone at Restaurant magazine. The first Asia list was announced in Singapore, with just four Bangkok restaurants finding their way on to the list that year. Nahm led the way back then in third place, Gaggan was at 10, Eat Me at 19 and bringing up the rear at 36 for Thailand was Bo.lan. No-one really knew how the ratings were achieved and hardly any attention was paid to a mystical list of foodies who apparently travelled around the region eating at well-known and very expensive restaurants. But the PR team back in London did a fabulous job and media outlets across Asia started to publish the results as if it was the definitive list, and a serious assessment of the best places to eat in Asia. Not long after that, the Asia’s 50 Best awards moved to Bangkok for a while, where a savvy cabal of established Thai restaurants found a way to influence the results, having become fixtures on the annual list. This year we offer our congratulations to nine Bangkok restaurants that made the Asia’s 50 Best list and in alphabetical order they are: Baan Tepa, Gaggan, Gaggan at Louis Vuitton, Le Du, Nusara, Potong, Samrub Samrub Thai, Sorn and Suhring. Many familiar names from earlier lists in there, albeit with some shuffling of the positions to keep a sense of impa