Living the high life at Saffron

At Saffron, a high-end Thai restaurant at the Banyan Tree Hotel on Bangkok's ever-busy Sathon Road, the setting alone will put you in the mood for a rare treat of fine dining in the festive spirit.

The décor at the hotel's signature restaurant features stylishly subdued Lanna-style influences and at pride of place is an artfully lit wall decorated with exquisite copper imitations of lotus leaves and flowers.

Several tables are positioned right by a large wall window in the 52nd-floor eatery that offers a spectacular, unobstructed view of Bangkok's skyline at dusk. From up here, the countless vehicles stuck in traffic on perennially congested Sathon Road appear like toy cars in Lilliput.

Perched high above the unceasing hustle and bustle of a metropolis at rush hour, you may find yourself feeling like an Olympian deity who cultivates an air of aloof detachment as to the mundane affairs of all those puny mortals going about their business at ground level.

Delusions of grandeur? Perhaps. Yet still awaiting you is a divine treat that is likely to add to your lofty sense of privilege: a lavish five-course meal (which costs 6,900 baht or 9,100 baht with paired wines).

Saffron's New Year's Eve dinner features bite-size rice dumplings with spicy smoked duck filling; pan-seared baby squid with young lemongrass and squid ink crackers; and fresh salmon rolls with green herbs, caviar and a spicy mint dressing.

And that is just for starters.

Still to come is crispy pork belly with locally grown herbs and edible flowers. It is followed by a spicy herbs broth. Marinating in the delightful soup, enriched in its spicy tang with morning glory and Thai basil, are Hokkaido scallops, king crab meat and tiger prawns.

The exclusive year-end feast is courtesy of Saffron's celebrated chef Renu Homsombat, who has been in charge of the hotel's signature restaurant since 2011.

A diminutive, charismatic woman with plenty of fire in the belly, Renu has made her mark at Bangkok's fine dining scene, largely dominated by male chefs, thanks to her inventive culinary creations. Her true metier, it turns out, lies in reinventing famous Thai dishes, like delicacies originating from the historical Thai Royal Courts, countryside villagers popular staples and all-time favourite home recipes with a gastronomic flair for discerning palates.

Many a dish at Saffron comes garnished with bits of Thai herbs and edible flowers. They hail straight from Renu's own little garden, which she cultivates beside her house on the outskirts of Bangkok. Regularly she also scours the fresh market in nearby Klong Toey for choice selections of locally grown greens.

"I love growing herbs, vegetables and flowers," the chef observes, showing off Instagram pictures of her garden on her mobile phone. "This way I can trust their quality."

Back in the day, Renu began honing her cooking skills at her mother's small kerbside eatery in her hometown of Lop Buri. She started working for Banyan Tree in Bangkok in 2003 and overtime worked her way up to its culinary heights. She now oversees the culinary operations at the hotel chain's other 10+ Saffron restaurants worldwide.

"I am a bit of a martinet, I must admit," she says with a chuckle. "I want the same high standards at every Saffron restaurant. It doesn't matter if they are in Macau, Danang, Mayakoba, Seychelles or Doha."

She regularly hits the road to ensure those standards are indeed meticulously upheld.

Not bad for someone who has been almost entirely self-taught. "I didn't attend a cooking school," Renu explains. "My mom had a street diner and that's where I learned all the basics."

At Banyan Tree, Renu started out as a lowly kitchen help making omelettes for breakfast. Before long she was in charge of the staff canteen. From there, helped by ambition, wit and grit, she made her way up to Saffron.

"I kept setting newer and newer targets for myself. I still do," Chef Renu says.

"I like to work hard," she elucidates. "What I've always believed is that it doesn't matter who you cook for -- whether security guards or guests or rich people -- you'll have to cook from the heart. Every meal matters."

The New Year's Eve meal at Saffron is proof of that commendable modus operandi. Each meal in the multicourse epicurean bonanza is a mini-masterpiece of gastronomic ingenuity whereby the familiar is reworked into something deliciously different.

Take the slow-cooked beef short ribs with longan fruit and spices, which serves as one of the three mains during the lengthy dinner. It is a lovely affair, coming as it does with a selection of jasmine rice, saffron rice, whole grain rice and mountain rice from Thailand's north.

Even at a glance, it bears more than a passing resemblance to a popular Thai dish commonly found on street vendors' stalls and in food courts. Renu says that in creating the beef dish she was inspired by how stewed pork knuckle is made on the street.

"I want people to have a different experience of the familiar," she explains. "Saffron is a Thai restaurant, but Thai food is far more than just tom yum kung and pad thai."

That is not to say, though, that tom yum kung is somehow AWOL at Saffron. Far from it. You can even get it in fresh spring rolls in another delectable combination.

By the time desserts arrive -- in the form of tapioca pudding, pumpkin ice cream, young shredded coconut with black sesame paste, and rose-flavoured sweet crackers with diced mango -- even out-and-out gluttons will have been well and truly sated.

Time for a drink or two at the adjacent Saffron Sky Garden.

A cosy lounge bar on the towering hotel's 51st floor, Sky Garden spoils you with first-rate views of the city. Inviting the eye on one side is a photogenic vista of a large bend in the meandering Chao Phraya River that enfolds the lush green island of Bang Kachao in a watery embrace.

Come New Year's Eve, Sky Garden will function as a perfect bird's-eye-view vantage point from which to watch the fireworks extravaganza ushering in 2020.

High life and high jinks. Who can ask for more?