Caviar in Thailand? Thanks to technology and a local fish farm, it’s not as rare as you might think

Caviar is breaking into Thailand’s fine-dining scene thanks to an innovative farm outside Bangkok and technology that creates a more ethical, affordable product

Traditionally caviar producers kill sturgeon to extract the eggs, but at the Thai Sturgeon Farm the fish are ‘milked’ instead and so live longer

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Chef Thitid “Ton” Tassanakajohn makes a dish using caviar from Thai Sturgeon Farm at his Lahnyai Nusara restaurant in Bangkok. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:45pm, 17 Apr 2022

At his upmarket Bangkok restaurant, Michelin-star chef Thitid “Ton” Tassanakajohn spoons black caviar onto a plate, adding the newly affordable Thailand-produced delicacy to his reinterpreted family recipes.

The luxury food, better associated with chilly northern nations, is breaking into the Southeast Asian country’s fine-dining scene, with the 37-year-old celebrity cook able to economically serve the roe thanks to an innovative farm outside the Thai capital.

Using hi-tech harvesting methods, a Thai-Russian partnership is offering a more ethical and affordable product by sparing the endangered sturgeon that provide the delicacy from their usual fate – death.

“The price is … more affordable, I would say, compared to the ones that we imported,” Ton says as he sprinkles caviar over Thai dip lhon pu at his restaurant Lahnyai Nusara.

A dish using caviar from Thai Sturgeon Farm. Photo: AFP

Using caviar helps challenge perceptions that Thai cuisine must always be spicy and with strong flavours, he adds.