Cafe Ice - A work of Art

The thing about life is that you can be merrily getting on with things, turn round an unassuming corner and fall unexpectedly in love.

ROB Review - Cafe Ice

Such is the case with Café Ice, that after one visit you will find yourself raving about your new paramour to all who will listen, hungry or not. Your only regret might be that this restaurant, art gallery and wine bar, nestled amidst the big banks of Silom and Sathorn, has existed without you knowing about it.

How could such a wonderfully artistically beautiful eatery exist down a quiet soi in not the most attractive part of town? At lunchtime Café Ice is packed with the well-dressed, interesting, career types but with a soi restaurant priced duck soup and sweet Thai noodle dessert at under a hundred baht together, it welcomes just about everyone. The soup chef stands outside whilst the creative cooking on the main menu comes from inside and pays homage to Thai, Italian and French cuisine, with eclectic dishes such as bouillabaisse, beef salad with herbs and grapes and scallops with cilantro sauce served with sautéed spinach and almonds.

The three floors with some outside seating, and corners of private seating all deepen the love. Café Ice feels like the home of an eccentric artistic soul who you would love to meet, a spirited intellectual who sees the world in a creative, humorous, passionate way and has natural good taste. Art hangs in every available space and is even stacked on the floors, pieces from friends of the Thai owner who used to work as a chef at the Mandarin Oriental.

A candelabra of mining lamps hangs over wooden tables and a high table gives a sense of occasion. A huge wooden frieze with big pink flowers reminding of a French farmhouse, leans casually at the back where marble pillars stand, along with dressmaker dummies decorated in sequinned show clothes, old Thai artefacts, hanging Chinese lanterns and exquisite furniture from Europe.

Café Ice isn’t quirky, it is one step above and beyond; it is decadently artistic without a touch of irony. The food is well presented, the Pad Thai comes in banana leaves on a huge boat shaped serving dish, with the biggest shrimp and the crab meat spring rolls with tamarind sauce are long, thin and elegant. The Caesar salad comes with a tray of the ingredients separated out, as the waitress creates this classic appetizer in front of you. The dressing is strangely more-ish. A closely guarded kitchen secret, you will find yourself craving it forever more.

The pineapple and sweet Thai basil smoothie served in a bowl shaped clay pot is interesting because it is unique and the flavors complement each other. The food is fresh and well cooked.

There are some works of art in the menu but it is the décor and the ambience at Café Ice that really stand out on the culinary canvas of Bangkok’s must dine restaurants that make this eccentric eatery a masterpiece.

ROB Review - Cafe Ice