Chef Dan Bark's Upstairs At Mikkeller has received much praise since it opened in 2015. Five years down the line and a Michelin star later, all that's changed is the menu, and the chef's-table-style, 20-seat restaurant is open four nights a week instead of three.
"I want to be able to quality-control and not be too greedy. I still want to be able to talk to every guest. We want that intimacy, and small-scale really helps. Opening four days a week gives me the time to evolve and work on new dishes," says the Korean-born chef.
Given the small space Upstairs occupies, every table has a view of the open kitchen and yet enough room to feel like a private dinner. Upstairs, as I am informed at the beginning of my meal, "is progressive American-style cuisine -- American flavours with an international twist, a cultural melting pot of different flavours coming together".
Lest one forget, Mikkeller is known for its craft beer; hence, Bangkok's first beer and fine-dining pairing began here, at Upstairs. Six different craft beers from all over the world in different styles, including one, Upstairs Downstairs, created solely for the restaurant by chef Bark and brewed at Mikkeller Denmark, are paired with the 10-course meal (3,800++ baht). There is also a Danish fruit-wine list, everything but grape! Fear not, traditionalists, there is also a normal wine list.
The meal starts off with two amuse bouche, light and easy flavours to wake up the palate. The first is compressed watermelon packed with lemon grass tea for a hint of flavour with some tamarind tang, ikura or salmon roe for a savoury feel. While compressed watermelon seems to be a trend in most fine-dining restaurants these days, the saltiness, sourness and texture brought on with the addition of tapioca chips and a touch of coriander was just the thing for a hot evening.
The second amuse bouche, of bacon marmalade infused with a cider, cooked until it achieves flavourful hoppiness, topped with whole-grain mustard and maple syrup served on a quinoa chip and young basil leaf, toned the palate to a savoury feel and took me back to the familiarity of a pickle eaten in South India.
Summer is here and so is the first course -- Alaskan king crab served cold alongside cucumber granita, pickled cucumber, coconut cream, candied cashew nuts and calamansi gel, topped with dill. Mix it all together and let your palate be indulged in cool goodness.
The carrot course is special, as chef Bark takes the simple carrot beyond expectations. The vegetable is presented in six different forms -- butter-roasted carrots, spiced carrots, pickled carrots, carrot chips, carrot puree and sprinkled carrot powder. A few of the forms are from the same carrot, but the chef has managed to extract different flavours with different cooking techniques. Fresh segmented pomelo adds a hint of sourness and candied pomelo skin adds a bittersweet touch. Fennel and fennel marmalade, goat's milk curd, lemon puree, puffed rice and carrot tops complete different textures, flavours and dimensions the dish offers.
The bread course is a house-made fluffy brioche served with olive-oil gel topped with red salt and Hawaiian black salted butter.
The next course is brand-new, and I was the first person to taste it. Sunchoke flavoured with onion, black garlic and mustard. One bite and I was taken back to my days in Paris, where many a French onion soup was eaten. Using white onion jam as a bed for the sunchoke, Dijon mustard cream, whole-grain mustard gastric, thyme flat bread, green and black garlic puree, pickled pearl onions, scallions pearls, micro mustard greens, onion chip are added to the dish. Served with a warm onion consommé, which is cooked for 36 hours to extract liquid out of red and white onions, it is then infused with thyme.
Umami is a word heard often, but rarely is there a dish surrounding it. At Upstairs at Mikkeller, ingredients for the next dish were chosen only because of their high umami content -- nori, truffle, miso and corn. The base is truffle corn polenta under a corn custard (corn juice cooked and thickened), garnished with baby corn grilled with miso butter, surrounded by pickled kelp noodles, fresh nori, chilli curls, corn shoot, truffle puree, burnt corn-husk powder, topped with locally-grown fingerlime. Resembling a poached egg, I was encouraged to break the corn "yolk" in the centre and enjoy.
I absolutely love beetroot. The seafood course of fermented beetroot, beetroot noodles, Hokkaido scallop sheets, apple puree for freshness, green peas in three forms -- chips, puree and fresh -- was enhanced by the sourness of the apple cream and blended well with the peppery taste of nasturtium leaf, micro mint and barley crispies.
Before the next dish even hits the table, I am engulfed in its aroma. Pork collar is cured for two days and slow-cooked for hours, served on a bed of braised kale, which has been seasoned with bacon fat, and is topped with paprika jam for smokiness. A potato nest sits atop the pork and the plate is decorated with deconstructed mole, along with lime, coriander and dark cocoa sauces. The plating instantly reminds me of Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama and the dish tasted like one of my favourite Parsi dishes, sali boti. There is a swirl of mashed potato on the side for those who need some respite from the rich flavour. Though each of the sauces tastes good separately, they are better when mixed together.
The flavours keep building and the next finger bite is 16-month-aged prosciutto on Japanese honeydew melon, honey cream and black pearls made from balsamic vinegar, a sprinkling of bee pollen and pea shoots. To finish the dish off, it is given a spray of white truffle mist tableside.
Wagyu beef from Japan, from the southern islands where the cows are fed olives and beer, is the highlight of the next course. Served with braised lotus roots, pan-seared garlic broccolini on the side and pickled radish, to cut down the fattiness of the beef. To tame the rich flavour, mascaporne is added, along with charred onions in two forms -- dehydrated and blended into a powder -- and a jam. This is topped with lotus-root chips.
In preparation for the transition from savoury to sweet, I decide to order a glass of my favourite Danish wine, Malus Danica, made with apples. A sip of the wine goes well with the palate cleanser of fresh passion fruit gel inside a white chocolate shell, which explodes in my mouth.
The first dessert of mango in three forms -- sweet diced, sour slivers and a sorbet goes well with the black sesame toasted in sesame oil to make the sponge cake, while white mochi-flavoured with kaffir lime, Thai basil and basil seeds finish off the dessert served with a kaffir lime-infused milk. Om nom nom, as the cool kids say.
It will not be dessert unless there is chocolate. Chocolate mousse with a dark chocolate disk, orange yoghurt, navel oranges and topped with candied walnuts, candied jalapeño for spice, orange jalapeño relish and orange blossom, garnished with verbena flowers and fresh oregano. I have dubbed the dessert "Upstairs Downstairs", but won't say why. You'll have to find out!
The meal ends with petit fours: dark chocolate brownie, cranberry cookie, chocolate bonbon filled with Thai tea and a cherry vinegar gel.
As chef Bark says: "If you care about what you do then you want to showcase it. It may not be the familiarity that people are used to but I like to push people out of their comfort zone." This is exactly what a meal at Upstairs At Mikkeller feels like. Familiar, yet so unfamiliar.
Upstairs Restaurant
- 26 Ekamai 10 Yaek 2, 2nd Floor
- Phra Khanong Nuae, Watthana
- Call: 091-713-9034
- Reservations: reservation@upstairs-restaurant.com
- Visit: http://upstairs-restaurant.com
