Legendary Thai cuisine expert David Thompson speaks to FridayWall during the opening of Fireback in Hyderabad about ingredients, authenticity, Michelin stars and why great food is driven by taste rather than technique.
The occasion for the conversation was the opening of Fireback and Barback at The Loft, HITEC City, marking EHV International’s entry into South India. Founded by restaurateur Rohit Khattar, the hospitality group behind acclaimed concepts such as Indian Accent, Comorin, HOSA and Chor Bizarre, EHV has brought its Thai dining concept to Hyderabad after successful outposts in Goa and Mumbai. Fireback, named after Thailand’s national bird, explores the country’s fire-led culinary traditions under David Thompson’s guidance, while Barback captures the spirited after-hours culture of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Together, the two spaces are designed to offer Hyderabad an immersive experience of contemporary Thailand.
The wonderful food tasting was at its fag end when we were about to be served served what one would easily go on to slot it as one of the best Mango Sticky Rice one tasted in recent times.
By the time dessert arrives, David Thompson is talking about mangoes.
The Mango Sticky Rice is excellent, he says. The dish itself is very good. But the mango is wrong.
“The Indian mango is fantastic. It’s got a delicious flavour, but it’s not right for this particular dish. It should be a little creamier, less sour.”
The observation is not criticism. It is philosophy.
Across the table in Hyderabad, as Fireback opens its doors at The Loft, the legendary chef who introduced authentic Thai cuisine to the world is explaining why ingredients matter more than recipes, why chefs should not chase Michelin stars, and why great cooking begins with taste rather than technique.
For over three decades, Australian-born David Thompson has dedicated his life to understanding Thailand through its food. His restaurant Nahm became the world’s first Thai restaurant to receive a Michelin star, while his Bangkok restaurant was repeatedly ranked among Asia’s finest. His work transformed global understanding of Thai cuisine and established him as one of its most important ambassadors.
Today, as Culinary Director of Fireback, he has brought that knowledge to Hyderabad.
Yet Thompson remains suspicious of fame, awards and culinary celebrity.
“It means little to me,” he says of Michelin stars. “As a cook, I’m my harshest judge. I was unrelenting in the pursuit of being as correct as possible.”
The pursuit of correctness, however, has changed over the years.
“I used to insist upon a dogged following of recipes. Now I let good cooks change things if it’s good. A good cook uses a recipe as a guide and adds themselves to it.”
That evolution mirrors much of what he spoke about during the evening.
He arrived in Thailand accidentally in 1986.
“I had no intention. I just ended up there.”
What followed was not merely a professional relationship but a lifelong attachment.
“You go to a country or a place and you just feel that instant connection. You feel at ease there. That’s what I felt in Thailand.”
It was not the food that first captivated him.
“It was how people lived. They lived in such a languid, agreeable style that was completely at odds with my understanding of how one lived.”
Today, after decades spent across Bangkok, London, Sydney and Hong Kong, Thompson says he cannot imagine living anywhere else.
“I’m about to change my citizenship because I so much love living in Thailand. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
His understanding of Thai cuisine is equally emotional.
One of the strongest themes that emerged during the conversation was authenticity. Thompson believes authentic cooking cannot simply be reproduced by following recipes.
“You can follow the technique but the ingredients will never taste the same.”
He explains that even identical ingredients grown in different countries taste different because of soil, weather and climate.
“When you have an accumulation of different tastes that are different from how it should be in Thailand, you end up with a taste that is unavoidably quite distinct and different. It doesn’t mean it tastes bad, but it tastes inauthentic.”
This challenge shaped Fireback itself. Rather than attempting elaborate royal cuisine, Thompson chose dishes that travel more successfully.
“I chose the street food stuff, which is the most easy to execute using ingredients that are quite common across the world.”
Yet he remains deeply respectful of Thailand’s culinary traditions.
“The Thais are very loose when it comes to their methods of cookery. They’re organic almost, where they chase the taste and they’ll use any means by which to achieve that.”
He believes older cuisines such as Thai and Indian share this instinctive approach.
“Those old cuisines, usually cuisines of women rather than men, have a deeper, more irrational approach. They follow what taste does. It’s more faithful. It’s truer to what people want.”
By contrast, he sees European cuisine as structured and rule-bound.
“European food is the food of the Enlightenment. There is a rationale and you follow certain techniques in a certain order.”
The chef who once pursued perfection through rigid rules now seems more interested in instinct.
“I’ve lost that doctrinaire approach. The understanding has deepened and changed.”
That evolution also informs the new cookbook he is writing, revisiting ideas from his landmark 2002 work Thai Food after twenty-five years of experience.
Perhaps the most revealing moment comes when Thompson speaks about success itself.
“The spotlight is fantastic, but it’s hollow if you don’t have that sense of satisfaction in yourself.”
And then, discussing Indian food, he delivers a line that may well explain his entire career.
“I like food that has character. I like food that means what it is and says, get out of my way because it’s coming through.”
As Hyderabad welcomes Fireback, David Thompson brings far more than a menu.
He brings a lifetime spent chasing taste, questioning certainty and discovering that the truth of food lies not in awards, recipes or trends.
It lies in flavour.
And sometimes, it lies in a mango.
