Chef Bee Satongun calls her cooking “80 per cent tradition and 20 percent creativity”. She should toss in an extra 10 per cent for attention to detail.
– The Sydney Morning Herald
‘The woman behind Paste Australia, the regional restaurant that has a solid claim to be the nation’s most exciting Thai restaurant, has plenty more dazzling dishes up her sleeve.’
– The Australian Financial Review Magazine
‘A watermelon salad with delicate balls of watermelon, ground salmon with fried shallots and toasted galangal powder. The watermelon pops and the complexities of the flavours are beautifully balanced. ‘
– Escape Magazine
‘What you can taste is everything in it – the herbs, lemongrass, galangal, pork, crab, edible flowers, smokiness and sweet coconut – made the hard way, the old way, by hand. Downtown Mittagong, you are now officially destination dining.’
– Good Food Australia
‘While she is excited about Australian produce, procuring the volume and variety of herbs is a challenge. “Fresh is best, but layering the herbs is a different story. Thai food is not just hot, salty and sour and very, very rarely sweet. That is just the seasoning. ‘
– Lorraine Elliott ‘Not Quite Nigella’
‘She’s been called Asia’s best female chef and leads one of Asia’s premier Michelin-starred restaurants, Paste, in Bangkok. Chef Bongkoch “Bee” Satongun and her partner, Australian-born chef Jason Bailey, are masters of Thai cookery. ‘
– Centurion Magazine
‘Indeed Thai food lovers who visit the elegant restaurant in Bangkok’s Gaysorn Village will be struck by how the dishes at Paste are unequivocally Thai yet unlike anything they’ve had before. ‘I twist the dish in layered herbal combinations,’ the self-taught chef explains, ‘injecting more umami that synergises and highlights the surrounding herbs.’
– Singapore Airlines
‘Authenticity is not duplication of the past. It is learning from the past, discovering depth
and details that are new to us, and adapting them to the future, just as those artists, writers, and chefs of history did before us.’
– Redbull Hangar-7
Why Michelin-starred Paste Bangkok’s ‘Chef Bee’ is on a mission to save food’s ‘soul’
‘From the time we decided we wanted to do it, it took about 14, 15 years. So we studied a lot, sometimes we did not eat anything but Thai food because we wanted to understand the flavours.’
– South China Morning Post
‘Every morning,” Satongun recalls, “I had to help out in the kitchen before school. And then once I finished my homework in the afternoon, I was back at it again.’
– KTCHNrebel
Elit® Vodka Asia’s Best Female Chef 2018 by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
‘Bongkoch ‘Bee’ Satongun has dedicated most of her life to rediscovering and reviving the authentic flavours of classic Thai cuisine. Together with chef-husband Jason Bailey, she has carved a unique place in Bangkok’s diverse gastronomic scene with restaurant Paste, where she showcases refined versions of traditional Thai dishes that reflect the country’s heritage with layered flavours and textural contrasts.’
‘Satongun spent her early childhood in the kitchen, helping her mother at the small Bangkok restaurant the family owned, making curry paste and squeezing coconuts from as young as five-years-old.’
– Fine Dining Lovers
‘We recently checked out the Michelin-starred restaurant and took the chance to sit down with Chef Bee, who just came back from the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants award ceremony in Macau. Here, she discusses with us her endeavour to preserve ancient Thai cooking techniques, what being named Asia’s Best Female Chef means to her and exciting next steps for Paste.’
– Lifestyle Asia
