Le Vendome Restaurant
267/2 Sukhumvit Soi 31
Bangkok
Tel:(02) 662 0530
Website

Return visit January 2007
I heard Le Vendome had moved from All Seasons Place, so I thought a revisit was necessary … not that I ever need an excuse to go to a good French restaurant.
Before you go, however, take a look at the map on the restaurant's website. I'd hate to see you wandering around on an empty stomach! In reality it is simple enough to find when you appreciate that soi 31 seems to go to the left where the green route comes in, and this restaurant is past the routes next left turn that would take you through to Asoke and Silom Village.
The building itself is interesting, with the kitchen and dining room separated by a large garden that includes a Jacuzzi the size of most swimming pools. A quick peek into the kitchen will tell you how serious the food is here.
The restaurant area is not particularly large, but it is comfortable and well-suited to the atmosphere the place is trying to create. Despite the move, the menu seems to have remained basically unchanged, so comments posted below still apply.
Although the ambience at All Seasons was starchy, the presence of the kitchen some how softened it. At the new place I found the whole operation very 'hi-so'.... those living in Thailand will know what I mean. I might have found it intimidating were I not such an experienced restaurant-goer.
Certainly, the head waiter had that Jeeves-ness, which let you know he thought everything should be done his way. The service was good, but there was the usual confiscating of the wine, and a bit of a sniff when I wanted my wine NOW!
Those gripes aside, this is still a first-class restaurant with, needless to say, first-class prices. Worth a trip, but it's certainly not one for the feint-hearted.

Orginal Review November 2005
Le Vendome has not been around as long as many of Bangkok's better restaurants but it has been around long enough to muscle in on the scene and get some serious respectability.
The restaurant is tucked away at the back of M Tower one of the impressive tower blocks that make up All Season's Place. It is a much smaller room than I expected and entry is through a small bar and then into dining room built round an open glass encased kitchen. At the far end is a piano player. The first table I was given was at the far end near the piano player. In the end I had to move as it was simply too dark to even make a stab at reading the menu, or more importantly the wine list. We were moved back to sit nearer the entrance where something other than night vision goggles sufficed.
The wine list at first sight looked impressive with plenty of very drinkable French wines at sensible prices. Then I noticed all those little crosses and realised the choice was nowhere near like as good as first thought. In fact the French whites were somewhat limited to the better, read more expensive, regions and classifications. In the red wine department there was a good selection of Clarets with a few good Margauxs as well as Petrus and Lafite Rothschild (one of the prettiest Chateaux). We had a Muscadet sur Lie and a very pleasant Cotes du Rhone, Le Clos du Caillou, a '01 that seriously improved the longer it was open.

The menu has to be described as limited, especially in Bangkok, where menus are normally (too) long. The mix was there in eight starters and eight mains and there was a gastronomic menu which I was tempted by and at 1,800 Baht did not look expensive compared to mains running at close to the 1,000 Baht range.
After a neat prawn wrapped in filo as a amuse bouche, I started with roasted veal sweetbreads with black truffle foam, mushroom ragout and green zucchini. This arrived in a deep dish, almost like a soup plate, disguised under a few rocket lettuce leaves. The tastes were great with the mushroom sauce superb and well set off by the odd piece of chopped zucchini. The other starter was a Province-style langoustine and made somebody very happy.
For mains I was a little short of selection options with only 5 meat courses which included pigeon, a choice which seems de rigueur in all top end French restaurants at the moment, then duck breast, rack of Lamb and two beef dishes. There were three fish dishes. All very specially prepared and clever in output I am sure. In the end I went for "braised beef cheek five hours in red wine." This was interesting in that it was a thick lump of beef, a lot thicker than I thought it would be, and it was very moist and very tender. I asked the chef later and it was indeed beef cheek. The other main was "duck breast glazed with honey lavender."
For puds On had pears in white wine, as opposed to the more well-known dish in red wine, and I had an interesting cheese board.
I did get to talk to the French chef in charge Nicol. He seemed a nice enough guy and is clearly trying very hard. I suppose my review is picky but then this place is trying to be a first class French restaurant and to an extent it works that way. It is a restaurant for foodies rather than those you want to impress and there are better restaurants in this town for that. But if you crave good inventive French cooking you could do a lot worse than Le Vendome