Jaras Phuket Gastronomy Menu

The Jaras Phuket Gastronomy Menu is so much more than a fine dining experience. The food is a Thai taste extravaganza, mixed with cultural appreciation and seasoned with a dash of Phuket history.

Our dinner offers a unique insight into the traditional ways of Phuket life. The gastronomy menu supports local industries and is keeping alive some of the traditional local recipes.

One of my highlights came from seeing the products I encountered in Thailand’s community tourism come full circle and end up on my plate or in my wine glass.

But first, let’s introduce Jaras a little further. 

Wren’s Tip!  Jaras is found by the beach at the InterContinental Phuket Resort. As you are likely to arrive hillside at the main drop-off reception area, take a moment to wander through to view the striking Sawan pavilion as seen above. The light at this time of day is dazzling and sets the scene nicely before dinner.

A Michelin Guide Restaurant

Jaras restaurant is well known on the island and featured in the Michelin Guide Thailand 2023. The review suggests:

‘Despite the luxury setting Jaras retains honest roots… Today’s Chef embraces sustainability serving a modern showcase of Thai flavours.’

Won’t you take a wander with me for tonight’s dinner journey?

Jaras Restaurant InterContinental Phuket

My Jaras Restaurant Review

The Jaras Gastronomy dinner is a 4-course sharing menu. It is on offer on selected evenings throughout the year. Check the Jaras website or Facebook for the next Jaras promotion.

Ambience

We made sure we arrived in time to catch the sunset over the Andaman Sea. It’s always a pretty picture to see the final rays of the day as they linger through the pine trees here on Kamala beach.

The restaurant is quiet as we enter to join other couples commencing their special dinner. 

Open Plan Kitchen

The open-plan kitchen by contrast was a hive of activity. The first thing that stands out is just how many people are involved in delivering our exquisite meal. As you eat, however, all becomes clear. Every ingredient has been chosen with a purpose. Every morsel is placed with precision on the plate. No wonder there is an army of gastronomes involved at Jaras!

Andaman Tiger Prawns

Jaras Style

The setting is stylish, understated and a restaurant where one immediately feels at ease. Look around at the detail and you will note this is a subtly designed restaurant.

Jaras suggests it’s ‘like being transported back to the Tribhum Buddhist novel’. That’s lost on me, but from the lights to the Karin and Krisa plates, to the rustic tree trunks framing the room, even I can see it’s a restaurant designed to allow the food on the table to be the star of the show.

Jaras Phuket

Jaras Seating

We’ve been given a window seat overlooking the swimming pool and beach. A little later a party of twelve arrives, decked up to the nines, and are shown to a semi-secluded dining table. 

In an opening of a door, the atmosphere changes, from quiet to happening. This is obviously THE place to be tonight!

What makes this Gastronomy menu special? 

For me, there are four components to fine dining; food, wine, restaurant, and the one they can do nothing about it’s BYO scintillating company. 

My husband rises to the occasion. There is nothing he likes better than to release his inner food critic especially when the meal comes with a wine pairing! Together we find new taste sensations whilst enjoying this authentic Thai cuisine. We spend the whole evening talking about food, and texture, and admiring smoke and foam! 

I’ll tell you right now, this menu was also special because it challenged me. I’m eating outside my comfort zone. The beef tendon for example would have been on my Not on your Nelly list, had it not been served up in a Michelin Guide restaurant!

Loca Giant Trevally Fish with Gaeng Som Soup

Wine Pairing

I don’t know about you but personally, I love an evening where we’re not pouring over the wine list trying to find something which is half decent that doesn’t cost the earth.

The wine for the evening is found on ice temptingly cooling in wooden wine barrels. Even the ice looks posh! Wine pairing suggestions are from Australia,  New Zealand, and a dessert wine that we already know and love, Thailand’s Monsoon Valley.

Harvesting grapes at Monsoon Valley April 2021

Appetisers

First up the appetisers and Chef Nui starts with a wow and some smoke!

• Phuket Crab Giean Thos: Gybsum, crab, taro, minced chicken, sweet chilli jam.
• Yum Pak Phuket: Crispy chicken skin, organic mixed local vegetables.
• Cha Coal Pay Gorae: Goat meat, fermented vegetables, gorae curry, mushroom puree.

WINE

• Pewsey Vale Riesling, Eden Valley Australia 2017

Pewsey Vale Riesling , Eden Valley Australia 2017

Some highlights:

In house fermentation

Jaras’ in-house fermentation lab cures and pickles to create new textures and flavours. You can’t help but notice all the jars in a corner of the restaurant. I love anything fermented, and I  know how my gut appreciates the wellness properties of fermented vegetables, so I’m voting for goat meat appetiser as my favourite.

Jaras fermentation Jars

Bang Tao Goat Farm

It’s not that long ago that I’m at the well-known Phuket goat farm milking the goats, being head-butted by the kids, and having my straw beach bag chomped on! I always expected goat meat to be tough, but not here.

Milking goats at Bang Hod Goat Farm

Phuket Crab

My husband enjoys the locally caught fresh crab, which was a tad too spicy for me. I liked the taste it was delicate. He copes better with the kick it delivered. 

Tan Khun Farm chicken

Jaras chicken is from the most famous chicken farm in Nakorn Pathom. The chicken is 100% free-range and the chooks are fed with the farm’s own natural recipe. The crispy chicken skin had a multitude of textures and complements the crab and goat meat appetisers well.

Soup

• Bak Kut The Phuket: Phuket Chinese spice, beef tendon, pork tenderloin, fermented shiitake, mushroom garum soup.

I’m not normally one to put my hand up for beef tendon and found it quite rubbery. However, I’m sure that Chef Nui does not need you to love every dish. He wants to challenge your taste buds, he wants to introduce you to some historical Phuket cuisine.

Soup: Bak Kut The Phuket

Mains

• Andaman Crab Go Rhag: Crab jumbo, fresh coconut milk, house-made coconut foam, fermented vegetables.
• Tiger Prawns with Phuket Bitter Beans: Andaman tiger prawns, bitter beans, shallot pearl, rice crispy crust.
• Local Gaeng Som Giant Trevally Fish: Trevally fish, gaeng som soup, coconut shoot, morning glory oil, catfish cured egg.

Andaman Crab Go Rang

Our waitress Poo tells us her favourite dish is the prawns ‘The bitter beans have a strong smell but eaten together with the prawns they are very tasty. The prawns in shrimp paste are very salty but Chef makes the balance very lovely. It is delicious, more than when cooked at my home!’

Shrimp Paste

I made shrimp paste in Surat Thani on a Thailand Village Academy trip. I know shrimp paste takes weeks to perfect. To enjoy the Tiger prawns is a trip down memory lane for me. I am back pounding hundreds of shrimps in the biggest pestle and mortar bowl you have ever seen!

Making Shrimp paste in Surat Thani

Salt

I find it fascinating how almost every small ingredient has a story to it. Take the salt. This is from Bor Hua Haad, in Isaan, and the best salt in Thailand. The villagers take the salt water from the river and boil it for over 12 hours until it forms crystallised rock salt.

Too spicy?

The Trevally fish was too spicy for my taste and even quite spicy for my ‘will eat anything’ husband!

Just a note on the levels of spice, I appreciate Chef Nui has not made everything tourist spicy and bland. I am happy to try everything as it should be served. It serves as a useful barometer for where my taste buds need to develop.

Coconut shoot, shallot pearl with Gaeng Som Soup

Our favourites

My favourite dish was the crab and yes we are back to my favourite fermented vegetables but in fact, anything with coconut foam has my vote.

WINE:

• Two Paddocks Pinot Noir Picnic (organic) Central Otago, New Zealand 2020

This wine from the southern part of New Zealand presents like a light Burgundy. It could take a couple more years in the cellar. A light red wine for easy drinking which doesn’t linger on the palate. We liked it. 

Phuket Crab Giean Thod

Dessert

Signature of Phuket

Thai desserts can be a challenge for me I tend to find them glutinous and rather sweet. However, I’m up for pineapple foam any day!

• Angkudessert Red turtle filled with green bean: Angkudessert, Candice cream, Phuket pineapple foam, fresh coconut milk

• Pandice cream Phuket pineapple foam and fresh coconut milk

WINE

• • Monsoon Valley Chenin Blanc Late Harvest Thailand 2020

We remembered this dessert wine as we bought some when we visited Monsoon Valley for their grape stomping Harvest Festival.  Good choice Jaras!

Angkudessert Red turtle filled with green bean

We appreciated the thought which had gone into the Angkudessert made into the shape of a turtle, an endangered species in Thailand’s waters.

Chef Nui wanted to draw attention to the plight of Thailand’s turtles. We had the absolute pleasure of walking along Kata beach in the south of the island during the Covid pandemic where a Leatherback turtle famously laid eggs on the beach for the first time in 39 years. Three cheers for Chef Nui’s turtle pudding!

Phuket’s pineapple plantations

Pineapple Plantation

I recently had the opportunity to visit a Phuket Pineapple plantation so again I know the immense work, each plant produces only one pineapple. Phuket’s pineapples have the reputation for being the sweetest in the land.

The freshest ingredients

The Gastronomy menu was a cumulation of everything I enjoy about Thailand. My forays into community tourism has given me an insight into agrotourism. I love seeing it come full circle and local foods being incorporated into fine dining rather than being offered Kobe beef, Norwegian salmon or an Aussie steak.  I have a great appreciation of the monumental effort of each dish in every course and I applaud Chef Nui for this menu.

Of course, the other factor of any Thai meal is the flavours, chilli and spices. We’re not experts on Thai food even after seven years of living here but we do appreciate the search for the best local ingredients even if after all these years I still can’t cope with too spicy! 

The Staff

The Thai staff many of them born and brought up on the island, happily share their reflections on the menu. Well-trained and knowledgeable and they delight in telling stories from their childhoods of similar dishes their grandparents made

Poo, our waitress was born in Phuket and explains she remembers her grandmother cooking some of the dishes. We learn that nowadays these recipes are not something she cooks as it is hard for her to find the ingredients. 

Chef Nui has adapted and modified the recipes and changed some of the ingredients to allow these traditions to continue with what is locally available.

Jaras Phuket Staff

Jaras details

• Hotel Address:  333, 333/3 Moo 3, Kamala Beach, Kamala, Kathu, Phuket 83150, Thailand
• Reservations Phone Number: +66 (0) 76 629 999 (Thailand)  +1 (800) 656 888 (Toll free US)
• Reservations Email: icphuket.rsvn@ihg.com
• Stay tuned for the next Jaras promotion at Jaras website or on the Facebook page.

Final Words:

The Jaras Gastronomy menu is a perfect way to sample local produce. Together with Chef Nui, we find ourselves on a culinary excursion. There is a real emphasis on a mix of tastes in the menu. I am sometimes out of my gastronomic comfort zone, my tastebuds are challenged and I’m pleasantly surprised. All in all, Jaras offered an exceedingly good and pleasant dinner journey. 

Disclaimer: Little Wandering Wren was an invited guest of the InterContinental Phuket Resort Jaras restaurant. All opinions are my own.

Please check out my other posts:

• A heavenly afternoon tea at Divas Lounge
• Monsoon Valley Grape Grazing and stomping, brilliant fun for all  (see me pick the Monsoon Valley grapes)
• Lock, stock, and one red hot smoking Barrow (making shrimp paste in Surat Thani)
• Live like locals Phuket (visiting the organic farm, and Bang Tao goat farm)
• Behold the leatherback turtle on Kata Beach 

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