Head chef of Michelin-starred IGNIV Bangkok says Thai chocolate is better than Swiss
Chocolate is just one of the unique Thai ingredients chef Arne Riehn uses in his menu, rooted in Swiss cuisine.

Arne Riehn is the head chef of Michelin-starred IGNIV Bangkok. (Photo: IGNIV Bangkok)
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In a land as vast and bountiful as Thailand, there is much to discover beneath the soil and seas. Most of us are familiar with the country’s irrepressibly sweet honey mangoes, Hom Mali rice, and peppery betel leaves. But there is so much more for cooks to work with, as Arne Riehn, the head chef of Michelin-starred restaurant IGNIV Bangkok, discovered.
Riehn arrived in the Thai capital in 2019. His mission: To bring the restaurant’s Swiss heritage to life using the produce his new home had to offer. Much to his surprise, Thai chocolate was among the best of them.
“Thai chocolate is one of the best I’ve tried,” he said. “The chocolate we use comes from Chanthaburi. It’s a 70 per cent single origin grown in an area where they grow fruit that Thailand is famous for, like mangosteen, durian, and mango, so the chocolate has fruity flavours. I think it’s even better than Swiss chocolate.” That’s a strong statement from a German chef who trained at vaunted European restaurants like three-Michelin-starred Vendome in Germany and now works for well-known Swiss chef Andreas Caminada.
So enamoured is Riehn of Thai chocolate that it is the only chocolate he uses in his desserts at IGNIV, which, incidentally, are all vegan save for a chocolate souffle.
“It’s always my goal to step away from French techniques since we already use them so much (in our savoury courses), so I wanted to celebrate the potential of Thai ingredients in dessert as much as I can,” he added. Coconut milk, for example, plentiful across Thailand, is a worthy substitute for dairy milk since it is rich in fat. So too soy milk, rice milk, and roasted rice milk, all of which he utilises.

During a trip to the cacao farm, Riehn chanced upon hearts of palm, which Thais enjoy as street snacks. Charmed and inspired, he brought them to the restaurant where he now grills and serves it with a scallop ceviche brightened with apples, shallots, and lemon vinaigrette.
“When I first came to Bangkok, I didn’t know there was tea, coffee, and chocolate grown here, which made cooking so exciting,” he admitted. Visiting those producers and fostering a relationship with them was its own reward as they often come to him with more unexpected ingredients like bai tong hom or what Riehn calls mountain kombu. “Our coffee supplier brought it to us, and it has this deep umami that tastes a lot like kombu.”
Grown by the Karen tribe of Le Tor Glor in the hills of Thailand’s Tak province, the bai tong hom looks like white pandan leaves. “We dry it over the fire to give it a smoky flavour and bring out the deep umami notes,” Riehn explained. This goes into a beurre blanc served with a main course of local trout.
Additions like these make IGNIV an interesting place to dine in. Tucked away in the St Regis Bangkok, IGNIV means ‘nest’ in owner Andreas Caminada’s native Romansh. It is designed to evoke the image of a bird gathering materials from its environment to build its home.

Although the food follows the premise of a typical fine dining restaurant, IGNIV is rooted in simplicity, a hallmark of Caminada’s style. “In my previous places of work, there were always many techniques and crazy plating with 20 to 25 different components. But once I started working with chef Andreas, I realised you can deliver a three-star Michelin experience by keeping things simple and refined,” said Riehn, who has worked with his mentor since he was accepted as a Uccelin Scholar in 2018 under the Fundaziun Uccelin, an initiative by Caminada and his wife Sarah dedicated to fostering emerging culinary talents.
“It’s as simple as taking a good ingredient like a vegetable, season it with salt and vinegar, and make the most out of it. That was mind-blowing to me, and this is how we cook here now.”


That philosophy is evident as soon as the meal begins with a snack of beetroot gazpacho on a creme fraiche mousse garnished with a grating of slow-cooked smoked egg yolk. “I think this is one of the best examples of making something good with just three ingredients and different textures,” Riehn said.

And while the elegant food, a Michelin star and its location in the swanky St Regis Bangkok suggest a formal fine dining restaurant, IGNIV is hardly that. At its heart beats a tasting menu of about 17 to 20 dishes served in just four sharing courses. Alternatively, diners can order a la carte, allowing the spacious, colourful dining room to be as accessible or special as the occasion warrants.
For us, it was an exquisite dining experience with the genteel service that Thais are renowned for, sans the stiffness and formality of a traditional fine establishment. And we were done with dinner within two hours, allowing us time to head out onto the busy streets to soak up everything else Bangkok has to offer.