Thai Cooking School At The Oriental

In the 1990s, Bangkok was becoming one of the world’s great culinary destinations, and the legendary Oriental Hotel was helping introduce Thai cuisine to an international audience.

Established in 1986, the Oriental Thai Cooking School was Bangkok’s first hotel cooking school. Reached by boat across the Chao Phraya River, the school offered visitors something unusual for the time: the opportunity to go beyond eating Thai food and begin to understand the traditions, ingredients and techniques behind it.

Here, students discovered the balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavors that defines Thai cooking, while learning about fragrant herbs, freshly prepared curry pastes and traditional methods passed down through generations.

When I traveled to Bangkok with my video camera, the cooking school was part of a remarkable movement taking place around the world. Cooking schools were opening their kitchens to travelers, sharing not only recipes but culture, history and a sense of place.

My cooking videos can be viewed below.

Today, the hotel is known as Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok, but the cooking school remains a wonderful link to that earlier era—and to the extraordinary culinary world I was fortunate enough to capture on film.

Enjoyed this culinary journey? Discover the stories behind the camera, original photographs, and additional recipes in our illustrated ebook. Just click on the cover above!