In Northeastern Thailand, Chefs Create Isan-Style Fine Dining

Rule 1:

Gather eggs between March and May.

Rule 2:

Prepare for thorny underbrush and an armada of hungry mosquitos.

Rule 3:

Ants are creatures of habit. If a tree has yielded eggs before, it will do so again.

Rule 4:

All it takes are a series of sharp, well-directed shakes of a branch to deposit handfuls of pearl barley-like white “caviar” into a net.

Rule 5:

Hurry. Ants will chase you when you take their eggs. If they catch you, they bite — hard.

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These rules are second nature to chef Weerawat “Num” Triyasenawat and second-generation forager Chimphan “Auntie Noi” Sripha, who regularly collect ingredients from the forests of Thailand’s northeastern Isan region. After dusting their haul with potato starch, which repels swarming ants, they calmly count their bounty and taste a couple of plump eggs, which burst in the mouth with the flavor of fresh milk.

Locals typically use ant eggs for spicy salads or soup. Sripha combines them with sweet tree leaves and queen ants (which have a mildly hallucinogenic effect) in a delicately spiced stew that’s typical for the region. A longtime proponent of foraging, just like his culinary idol, French chef Michel Bras, Num uses the eggs at Samuay & Sons, his restaurant in Udon Thani, the third largest city in Isan.

“We have been eating insects for centuries,” Num says. “Foraging is [part of our shared] wisdom, from [when we were in] survival mode.”

A full morning’s labor yields enough eggs for one dinner service — not a huge return on investment. But Num says the exercise isn’t about gathering enough eggs to fill out a menu. It’s about reframing the culinary narrative around Isan. Though the region is a huge agricultural powerhouse, it’s relatively poor and chronically underrated by city folk from Bangkok and Central Thailand, akin to the divide between coastal capitals and flyover states in the U.S.

“Most people think Isan food is humble, affordable, cheap,” he says. “I want to take what people know about Isan food and then take them somewhere else.”

Num is one of a growing number of chefs rewriting the culinary map of Thailand. Utilizing seasonal, traditional ingredients — mountain crabs, boba pearl-like mushrooms, sour forest mangoes, mole crickets — his sophisticated-yet-unpretentious dishes are upending stubborn perceptions.

As for the ant eggs, Num quickly salt-cures them, smokes them with sugarcane, and combines them with caviar from Hua Hin in Southern Thailand in an inventive take on the salad called sup nor mai. The implication is clear: If eggs from fish can be a delicacy that fetches thousands of dollars, why not eggs from Isan’s ants?

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Num’s ant eggs thunder with umami, but the dish is a far cry from Isan’s reputation for fiery, tart, and salty food. While a specific, crowd-pleasing version of the region’s cuisine has become hugely popular at street food stalls in Thailand and restaurants across the U.S. — often boiled down to the “holy trinity” of grilled chicken, som tum (green papaya salad), and sticky rice — food in Udon Thani usually bears more similarities with the murky, umami-filled cuisine of Northern Thailand. Dishes often have a slightly bitter undertow, restrained acidity, absolutely no sugar, muted spice, and strong notes of pla rah, a fish sauce made by fermenting freshwater fish with salt for up to a year.

Nuance tends to get lost when people discuss Isan, which is both Thailand’s most populous region and its poorest, contributing less than 10 percent of national gross domestic product, mostly from agriculture. Centuries of cultural difference and economic inequality have created deep divides between the Northeast and the seat of power in Bangkok. Though politicians regularly woo voters in Isan in order to win seats in parliament, they rarely deliver on promises to help the region; populist administrations supported by Northeasterners never last long in the capital, either, leading to an adage: Isan votes governments into power and Bangkok kicks them out.

Without economic or political leverage, Isan is stuck in a kind of catch-22: too poor to build enough infrastructure to attract tourists, yet not enough tourism money to rise out of poverty.

The popularity of Isan cuisine initially seems like a silver bullet to solve some of the region’s woes, but the spread of food around the country and the world hasn’t historically translated into real opportunities back home. Persistent stigmas among Central Thai residents about their Northeastern neighbors continue to shape interpretations of Isan food.

“How could this region, with such culture, hard-working people, vast and diverse landscapes, and so many phenomenal Thai dishes be so overlooked?” asks Aarya Surindhara, a hotelier and restaurateur in the process of turning her childhood home in northern Isan into a hotel, Domaine du Mekong.

Surindhara finds the roots of the impasse deep in Isan’s history. The region was part of the Lao Lan Xang kingdom, the Land of a Million Elephants, from the 14th to 18th centuries, before it was conquered by France in 1893 and ceded to what was then Siam a few years later. Some of Isan’s most famous dishes are adaptations from Laos, including som tum, larb, sticky rice, and jaew (spicy sauce that accompanies grilled meat). Foods influenced by Laos are especially prominent among Isan’s farm workers because they’re easy to assemble, transportable, and eaten by hand with local leaves and herbs. Mok pla, for instance, combines freshwater fish with a heady paste of dill, chiles, makrut lime leaves, garlic, and onions, all wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed.

But in Bangkok, these Laotion influences aren’t seen as anything to be proud of. Capital residents regularly use the term “Lao” as a pejorative, meaning “country bumpkin” or someone unsophisticated and credulous. And that’s not the only aspect of Isan cuisine that Bangkokians have rejected.

After World War II, workers from the Northeast migrated en masse to the capital, where they mostly took up blue-collar jobs as taxi drivers, maids, security guards, and construction workers. Homesick for their own cuisine, some migrants started selling som tum, chargrilled meats, and larb from food stalls by the city’s Victory Monument. But locals — many of them averse to funky pla rah — quickly reinterpreted these dishes, giving birth to items like “som tum Thai,” a sour-salty-sweet-spicy melange that adds dried shrimp and peanuts (typical Central Thai flourishes) to the standard green papaya.

“Isan food in Bangkok is so different,” Num says, creating a sort of “parallel cuisine” in which almost every flavor is louder than what you get back home. “It’s spicier. And when [chefs] do use pla rah, it’s so much more pronounced.” He notes that Bangkok chefs usually use too much sugar as well, echoing a common complaint among chefs about the current state of Thai food in general. Num’s hypothesis for the reason behind Bangkok’s sweet tooth? “Sweetness equals wealth.”

In the last few decades, immigrants from Myanmar have gradually taken over a lot of those blue-collar jobs. But economic opportunities in Isan have remained limited, and many ambitious young folks still expect to migrate to the capital. This has been especially true for chefs, who have developed a playbook for culinary stardom: After rising from humble beginnings in a small town, they develop an innovative take on a local cuisine, earn a Michelin Bib Gourmand or other recognition, conquer Bangkok with a chain of restaurants, expand abroad, and maybe land a Netflix special. This narrative leaves out a critical final step: widely affecting perceptions of regional Thai cuisine.

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Rejecting that narrative and eschewing Bangkok for Udon Thani has turned chef Num into a folk hero of sorts. Though he has his side projects — a Thai restaurant inspired by the 1970s and ’80s opening in Bangkok, a pop-up in Khao Yai to help reforest the surrounding mountains — he continues to cook alongside his brother, chef Voravat “Joe,’’ at Samuay & Sons, a restaurant named for his mother and inspired by his father, an insurance salesman who served as the family cook.

His ringtone, Nino Rota’s “Speak Softly, Love” (the theme to The Godfather), hints at the role he plays in the local food world. He constantly takes calls to connect chefs with producers, advise culinary students, or weigh in on ingredient questions.

“I don’t do this for myself,” Num says in between calls. “I just want to help people get good money.”

In Khon Kaen, a neighboring city, chefs Paisarn Cheewinsiriwat and Kanyarat Thanomsang have found their own riches at Kaen, a reference to the city and to Paisarn’s parents’ timber business (“kaen” means “wood”). The dining room, which is predictably filled with wood, is also decorated by the best in local textiles, and local music plays from the speakers.

“We have a saying: ‘Gindan kue sinsap,’ or ‘poverty can yield treasure,’” Paisarn says. “The herbs that grow here have such strong flavors because they have to be strong enough to survive. There are so many good things in this land.”

While working as a chef at a luxury wellness resort, Paisarn dreamt of one day cooking with Iranian caviar, Canadian lobster, and all of the world’s most expensive ingredients. Now that he finally has his own restaurant, his perspective on luxury has shifted. “The way of being elegant has changed,” he says.

Kaen’s seasonal menu allows Khon Kaen’s ingredients to shine with simple European-inflected techniques. Local wagyu steaks are grilled and served with charred local sugar peas and mushrooms. A rustic vegetable stew seasoned with pla rah is dressed up as minestrone. Bottles of the local moonshine — once the purview of celebrating villagers — are given the digestif treatment, wheeled out on a trolley as Isan eau-de-vie.

In Ubon Ratchathani in southeastern Isan, Sirorat Thowtho, who goes by Pa Chef (Auntie Chef), also embraces local inspiration, but she doesn’t feel the need to attract outside customers. She named her restaurant Mok, a reference to the farmer’s dish mok, but also to mok’s other meaning in Thai: “hidden.”

“If anyone doesn’t intend to come looking for us, they won’t be able to find it,” she says. “It’s a hidden gem.”

Those lucky enough to find the restaurant are treated to a multicourse Isan omakase, including local fish made into sausage and served in its broth with dollops of chile paste and osetra caviar, local snails cooked in white wine a la escargot, and dancing shrimp (served grilled instead of alive, as they’re often eaten locally) with shrimp biscuits and pineapple salsa.

“In the eyes of outsiders, this land is full of drought,” Thowtho says. “But Isan is the source of the best meat, vegetables, and jasmine rice in the world.”

Chefs don’t have to serve local cuisine in order to serve their communities. Tawara “Earl” Ananthikulchai felt lost after graduating from college, so he taught himself how to bake.

“After I decided to stay at home, I had only one idea: bring what I learned about French pastry to my hometown,” he says. Ananthikulchai now runs the popular patisserie Le Bonheur out of his childhood home. He prides himself on introducing treats like Black Forest cake, poached pears in red wine, and perfect scones to Udon Thani’s burgeoning scene.

These chefs no longer need a big glitzy place in Bangkok to prove their chops and attract followers. Though they have seemingly opposite approaches to attracting the attention of diners outside Udon Thani, Samuay & Sons and Mok both earned Bib Gourmand recognition in Michelin’s inaugural Isan guide in 2023.

“It used to be very difficult to be a talented chef stuck in an Alpine lodge somewhere,” says Gavin Vongkusolkit, owner of the Ad Lib hotel in Khon Kaen. He cites social media as a big shift in how fans find and honor great cooking. “Now with Michelin and Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, people travel for food. They’re looking for something different.”

Foreign audiences, like those that control awards-granting organizations and support Isan restaurants abroad, have been especially receptive to the region’s transformation. But global affirmation only gets a chef so far.

“I want to see Samuay & Sons as a good place to eat for everyone, for local people and as a destination,” Num says.

During many dinner services, Samuay & Sons caters to locals, who arrive for a quick bite from the a la carte menu, which is cheaper and quicker than the tasting menu. They order simple dishes like massaman curry and the chef’s own childhood favorite, kai pullo, eggs and pork braised in Chinese five-spice powder. Ant eggs don’t make an appearance.

“The a la carte menu is a straightforward focus on flavor. The [tasting menu] courses are meant to be innovative,” he says. “I hope Michelin understands the concept.” Num doesn’t see the two menus as mutually exclusive. He believes he can push boundaries without alienating his local customers. “The concept of authenticity is Western,” he says.

This big-tent conception has allowed the region’s restaurants to gain traction with many types of customers, as chefs cook with local ingredients at various price points. It also seems like Num’s broader message about Isan’s value is getting through to diners.

“Seven years ago, people had no idea what I was trying to do,” Num says. “But now we can say we are pioneers.”

Chawadee Nualkhair is a Bangkok-based food writer.