Côte by Mauro Colagreco

Ginger on the Riviera pass

Ginger and lemongrass move through the pass before the Riviera frame takes hold. Davide Garavaglia, Executive Chef at Côte by Mauro Colagreco in Bangkok, works that join from inside Capella Bangkok on the Chao Phraya River. His bench was built in Europe before it settled here: formal training in Milan in 2009, D’O under Davide Oldani from 2009, Sketch under Pierre Gagnaire from 2013, then Mirazur in France as sous chef from 2015. Côte has been his working site since 2020, where the discipline is neither replica nor departure. It is a Riviera kitchen using Thai brightness with restraint.

The public dish now attached to his Bangkok work is Red Cliff Creation, named by MICHELIN in 2024 as his signature. That matters because the restaurant’s language can otherwise sound broad: French and Italian coast, Bangkok river, local sourcing, modern technique. Garavaglia’s station narrows it. He keeps ingredient clarity at the center, letting ginger, kaffir lime, pomelo, lemongrass, seafood, poultry, vegetable and sauce hold their own places on the plate.

Nine dishes without clutter

The kitchen works around a tasting-menu structure, including a nine-dish Carte Blanche surprise meal. The method is not abundance for its own sake. Côte’s register is clean Riviera revision: classic coastal ideas cut, salted, infused, lightened, then brought into contact with Thai materials. Monkfish a la cacciatora brings sea and land into the same course. Langoustine appears with tomato and dried fruit. Local sea urchin meets cauliflower. Beetroot, caviar and cream show the vegetable work that sits beneath the luxury ingredient.

The restaurant holds two MICHELIN stars, and its wider award record belongs to this Bangkok dining room, not to another address in the group. Garavaglia’s own recognition, the MICHELIN Guide Thailand Young Chef Award Presented by Blancpain in 2023, also belongs to the work he has made visible here. Awards do not explain the cooking. The plate does that more cleanly: a Riviera gesture, a Thai aromatic, a sauce kept in proportion.

The river as the room’s quiet station

The room looks out across the Chao Phraya, but the view does not take the work away from the pass. Light sits on pale surfaces; service moves formally, without hard edges; the dining room keeps a quiet register suited to a multi-course meal. Côte’s wine program is built around pairing, with the glass following the menu rather than competing with it. The Green House, with more than 100 herbs, gives the aperitif its own bench-side material before the meal settles into the room.

What stays with the place is the way the river changes the Riviera idea without turning it into scenery. The coast is present in langoustine, sea urchin and cacciatora structure; Bangkok enters through the aromatics and the produce. Garavaglia’s next plate does not need a larger claim than that. At Côte, the proof is still Red Cliff Creation.