Thailand

PRU dining Phuket experience: From 1 November the only restaurant in Phuket to have ever received the prestigious Michelin star will give guests front-row seats to the best of Thailand with its new kitchen.

Helmed by Executive Chef, Jimmy Ophorst, Pru – within Trisara resort, has blazed a trail for sustainable fine dining in Thailand. And the “Inside-Out” experience, housed in a new purpose-built restaurant, dissolves the traditional wall between the kitchen and the dining room.

With an open kitchen encouraging connections with guests, diners will be able to see how each morsel is prepared, thereby providing complete transparency to the culinary process.

“We’ve been inspired by the kappo style of service, where the formality between the chef and his guests are eliminated as the chef ‘cuts and cooks’ the freshest seasonal ingredients based on interactions with each guest,” said Ophorst. “We adopted the philosophy in the new restaurant design to create the Inside-Out experience and bring our guests closer to the best ingredients Thailand has to offer.”

The restaurant has ten seats at the kitchen counter where guests can witness Ophorst and his team upclose. Guests wanting more space can experience Inside-Out in the main dining room. Further seating for exclusive small group events is available inside The Reserve, a private dining room inside a modern wine cave that houses a select collection of over 200 premium and rare wines.

Broadening ‘farm-to-fork’ to embrace the wider local community, the new PRU experience uses artisanal products throughout the customer journey. From lounge chairs to the tiles used to the artwork decorating its walls, PRU highlights community crafted products. All courses are served using ceramics made by InClay Studio from Chiang Mai, and all utensils are produced by local Thai artisans.

“Fine dining should connect people across cultures,” said Ophorst. “We’re proud to play a role to connect our guests to the richness of Thai products via our ‘community-to-fork’ principle which includes artisans as our partners.”

Further building on PRU’s reputation for shaping lesser-known Thai ingredients into delicious bites in a sustainable way, an additional bespoke menu, Gaia, is offered, which is completely ovo-lacto plant-based. Moreover, the restaurant serves lunch that features a lighter seasonal fare with different courses from the evening menu.

“We’ve come a long way to be where we are now,” added Ophorst. “But we want to look forward to attracting customers from around the world to Phuket with the objective of dining at PRU. Every chef wants to improve and push to the highest level possible and I’m no different. The creative scope that the new venue affords us means that the sky’s the limit.”

Reservations are now open at www.prurestaurant.com

Pru is a part of the constellation of restaurants from Montara Hospitality Group, whose core philosophy of “Dine Good, Do Good” prioritizes sustainability and support for local communities throughout guest experiences and in all F&B operations. The group has a 16,000 sqm organic farm, Pru Jampa, that provides essential ingredients to PRU and other Montara restaurants. All ingredients used in PRU are 100% sourced from Thailand.

Pru was the first and only restaurant in Thailand outside Bangkok to receive the prestigious Michelin star in 2018, a recognition that it has maintained every year since. PRU was also the first and only restaurant in Thailand to receive the Michelin green star for its sustainable practice, a recognition it has maintained every year since. In addition, PRU has been recognized as one of the best restaurants by Asia’s Top 100 Restaurants, as well as by other local, national, and international lists.

Chef Jimmy Ophorst, affectionately known as Chef Jimmy, is originally from Honselersdijk, Netherlands. His interest in cooking started at a young age in the family kitchen and on the seashore of his hometown. His career at the Montara Hospitality Group began in 2014 as a Chef de Cuisine for Trisara and received his first Michelin star with PRU at the age of 29.