TEXT: JAKE HAMILTON; PHOTOS: LESLEY FISHER
STOPOVER
food
FAHTHAI
29
A
lex Gares is no stranger to the sea.
The executive chef at the Four
Seasons Resort in Koh Samui grew
up on the northern coast of Spain,
and lived and worked in the Maldives for
several years. Now happily settled on Samui,
Gares recently completed his biggest project to
date: spearheading the opening of the Samui
resort’s KOH restaurant, a high-end Thai
eatery with an ever-evolving menu.
By turns charismatic, curious, intense
and brimming with energy, the 36-year-old
chef knows all the best markets, fisheries,
family-run restaurants and haunts for secret
ingredients on Samui. As such, when he’s not
at the resort or doing the rounds of these, he’s
likely to be found scurrying through the trees
or along the coastline with his daughter in
hopes of making further food discoveries.
Fah
Thai
caught up with Gares on the eve of his
new restaurant’s opening…
What are your first
memories of food?
I remember my
grandpa, who was
a miner and later
became a carpenter.
He had very good
hands for cooking.
We hear you're mad for
sourcing things yourself.
I’m crazy with that. Since I was a kid I’ve
always been fishing, getting snails or small
shrimps from the shore, or been in the woods
picking asparagus, mushrooms or berries. I’m
still doing it in Samui! Here I have tamarind,
mangos, papayas, bananas, even chickens and
hens. I love all this.
What's the best Spanish dish ever?
We have lots! But for me, I love pork trotters
Gares speaks English,
Italian, Spanish and
Catalan fluently
My favourite dish
Alex Gares, Koh Samui
MAN ON A
MISSION
A born forager,
Gares is passionate
about using locally
sourced food
H O T D I S H
Multi-
lingual
D I N I N G
and snails, and
suquet de peix
(a kind of
Valencian fish stew).
What sets KOH apart from other Thai
restaurants?
At KOH, we’re looking for the real Thai taste.
We want to go beyond the
phad thai
and the satay.
We use a lot of seasonal
and local products like
palm heart, peanut
sprouts, sator (petai or
“stink” beans), no riang
(tree) beans and so on.
Essentially, we do Thai
food for Thai people but
with top-quality products.
And the menu will be forever changing?
Yes. I want fresh, seasonal and local products
as much as possible. If the items from Samui
are better than from Surat or Bangkok, then all
the better.
So then, what's your favourite dish at KOH?
I can’t pick one! Okay, so the
plaa goong
, a
prawn salad with roasted chilli paste, lemon
grass and mint, is fantastic.
fourseasons.com
