Last night, the bar table in Mumbai-born Thailand-based chef Garima Arora ’s GAA restaurant in Bangkok became a makeshift beer pong table in celebration of a rare honour. On November 14, it became the first restaurant helmed by an Indian woman chef to be awarded the prestigious Michelin star. GAA’s maiden star helps it earn a proud place in The Michelin Guide Thailand 2019.

Growing up in Mumbai, Arora would sample various exotic foods her father brought back from his travels. Arora studied mass media at Jai Hind College and worked as a pharma journalist before leaving to pursue her culinary dreams. After a stint at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris , she moved to Dubai for two years and then worked in Copenhagen for three years at what was is one of the most high-end restaurants in the world today, Noma.

Arora worked with celebrated names such as René Redzepi, Gordon Ramsay and Gaggan Anand. A year at Gaggan Anand’s restaurant in Bangkok called Gaggan that has held the number one spot among Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants for the last seven years running led her to build her own venture. Since then, Gaggan the chef and Garima have partnered in the restaurant Gaa in the heart of Bangkok.

She acknowledged them all in her Instagram message on November 14: "A shout out to the 30 most amazing people I have met over the past year and a half. Each one of them persevered, believed and always showed up. To each member of team Gaa, a big thank you and congratulations now let’s beer pong."

In an interview with a travel magazine Arora said, reminiscing the moment she got the call: "I don’t think it has sunk in yet! The moment we got the call was just perfect. It was me, my sous-chef, our PR manager, our restaurant manager, sommelier , all sitting together for a food and wine pairing. And while we were eating, we were like ‘wow this is so good’, and that exact moment we got the call. It was almost poetic."

She also conceded in this interview that the culinary industry wasn't an easy one to be in. "You have to be prepared mentally, and I think this is true for men and women both—you will be working when everyone else will be partying or celebrating Diwali. You’ve really got to love what you do, and you’ve got to put in everything that you have to this job. It is one of those things that need you to be physically present. There is no other way to do it. Once that is clear in your mind that this is what you want to do with your life then you can jump in and obviously everything else follows," she said in the interview.

In the restaurant, the kitchen boasts a team of 12 people from seven nationalities and the food is just as eclectic. Among the key highlights of the menu is a jackfruit dish--an unripe jackfruit cooked on the grill. "In Thailand, no one eats unripe jackfruit but in India, it’s the most normal thing," said Arora in an interview to a magazine. "We also have a small roti that you make a taco out of using all these home-made pickles on the side. So, I mean this dish is about combining not only technique or flavours but also cultures."

