David thompson chef biography

Chef David Thompson right plays the whole orchestra of Thai flavours in his intricate, layered food. Glacial air con, steam-bath humidity, temple bells, jackhammers; Bangkok is a city that throws you into the deep end of contrasting sensory overload.

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Watch with appetite as green papaya is shredded, and chilies and lemon grass pounded into a palate-dazzling salad. Let the juice from an utterly ripe pineapple wedge drip sensuously down your arm. Tune in to the clang-scrape of wok frying that presages noodles. Thompson has been dubbed the best Thai chef in the world, which is not a bad accolade for the Aussie, a non-Thai cooking in a culture that reveres what it eats.

The story of how an Australian came to be cooking Thai food for Thais begins with a vacation in the Land of Smiles, where Thompson experienced the Thai version of coup de foudre. Two years later, he was back there to live; he delved into authentic Thai cooking and eventually returned to Sydney where, in , he launched Darley Street Thai.

Definitely not your ho-hum tom yum, this was a place staffed by self-styled Luddites who created fresh curry pastes with pestles and mortars, and tapped coconuts for milk. Memorial books were first published in the s—back when Thailand was known as Siam—as a way of broadcasting knowledge in a country that had very few books. Back in , Thompson showed me part of his collection after a memorable dinner at Darley Street Thai that included a rich prawn relish with hair-thin shreds of lemon grass, and Murray River cod wrapped in bai yor , an aromatic leaf.

Darley Street Thai worked, scooping up awards, becoming a global byword for non-formulaic Thai food, and only closing in when lease renewal became prohibitive.