My best meal in my first trip to Chiang Mai turned up to be totally unplanned. After skipping lunch, I was craving for an early dinner when I came across an article on Chiang Mai City Life about a new fine dining restaurant, The Redbox Restaurant. (By the way, Chiang Mai City life turned out to be the best source for reliable information about the city.) The backstory was really stimulating: a relatively young chef, Dan, with experience in Brunei and Australia, coming home with his wife Proud to open their dream restaurant. Luckily they had no problem accepting my booking for a very early dinner and the rest is history.
The visit
The restaurant is located in an elegant villa in a quiet residential “soi” (alleyway), not far away from the Maya Shopping Center. I suggest you to get there using Grabcar app as I did.
The interior is very nicely decorated. It feels like to be in a private home. They have seating both indoor and outdoor. The indoor dining room is very intimate and warm.
They have an extensive menu! It was not easy to limit my choice to three dishes.
I started my meal with a bang. I ordered what I later discovered was meant to be one of their signature dishes: watermelon and foie gras (but they also have a version with fried tofu). I really wanted to try how the flavors would combine. This was a very refreshing and tasty appetizer. The sweetness of the watermelon and the foie gras were balanced by the bitterness of the rocket salad and the balsamic vinegar sauce. I can see how the use of fruit as an ingredient can be regarded as an homage to Thai cuisine where combining fruit with meat or seafood is not uncommon. At the same time, the dish possessed the creativity to be in the menu of a Michelin-rated venue. I was later explained that the watermelons are handpicked to ensure that the piece used for the dish is seedless, perfectly ripe and solid. This dish was a great introduction to the Redbox philosophy and their care for all the details of their dishes.
Then I opted for something substantial (remember that I had skipped lunch!) that I had never tried before: a crispy pata, a Filipino dish consisting of deep fried pig knuckles served with a soy-vinegar dip. Every bite of this pork meat was sensational and the skin was super crispy and tasty (it reminded me Spanish fried pork skin). They use a quality of pork imported from Japan that is famous for its thick skin and juicy meat.
The dish came with salad and some delicious sauces, in addition to some mustard and the traditional soy-vinegar for the meat (honestly the meat was so good that mustard and dip sauce were hardly indispensable).
I had room for another main course (honestly the previous dish could have been easily split between two people…). I asked for a traditional Thai dish and I was recommended the tamarind prawns. In the pictures above you can see it both how it came nicely presented out of the kitchen and how its content looked spread on my dish. I was particularly impressed by the big size and meatiness of the prawns that made this traditional dish particularly satisfying.
At this point chef Dan came to greet me and we had a brief chat. He explained me how the “RED” philosophy came into being and gave me more insights about the dishes I had. RED stands for “ready, edible and distinctive”. The philosophy came to be in the Brunei where Dan’s family runs a restaurant business and where he introduced gourmet boxes catering to expat workers that were not entirely happy with the local food options. He also shared that his mum is Filipino and this explained the crispy pata on the menu. I was then invited to have my dessert in their tearoom downstairs.
The tearoom is even more intimate and some of the desserts are on display.
I had a slice of banoffee pie and a teapot of a custom Siam tea blend. The dessert was on par with the previous magnificent dishes. In the pie I could clearly distinguish the sweet crumble base, the banana and the tiramisu cream (made using sugar cane from Northern Thailand).
Finally, on the house, I was offered two bites of a traditional Thai shortbread cookie called lambduan. To make them more special, they were presented inside a special teapot where some aromatic substance was burning giving them additional fragrance. Marvelous finale.
The check
This first class meal cost me 1,530 THB, around 46 USD. For three substantial dishes, tea and dessert, this is incredible value for money. Among other things, I appreciate that they charged water at a nominal rate (I start hating restaurants that charge me 10 USD or more for a bottle of water…).
My only regret is that the following day they were full and could not accommodate me for another meal. This is the kind of restaurant that would prompt me to organize another trip to Chiang Mai. I wish the best to Dan and Proud for their business because what I saw was talent combined with true passion and care. I am just afraid that in the near future, as soon as word starts spreading, it will be very tough to secure a table in this world class restaurant.
Where in Chiang Mai:
No. 6 Jannsaap Alley, Huay Keaw Road.
Check their Facebook page for updated information. Currently open for lunch and dinner and closed on Tuesdays.
They are active on LINE app: @redboxth.