Culinary journeys on land and sea

AFTER A SUCCESSFUL 18 months of catering to the young and wealthy with top-quality imported beef, charcuterie and much more, the savvy management team at Cocotte Farm Roast & Winery on Sukhumvit Soi 39 is turning its talents to another eatery, this one focusing on seafood. 
While Cocotte is a rustic rotisserie, the newly opened Pesca Mar & Terra Bistro on Ekamai Soi 12 offers Mediterranean-inspired cuisine. Like its older sibling, it boasts an open kitchen, though this one is more market-like and has crabs and prawns on ice as well as live oysters in a glass tank, which clients can select and ask the chefs to prepare the way they like them.

Pesca Mar & Terra Bistro offers Mediterranean-inspired cuisine with an emphasis on seafood. 

The decor blends rustic and modern, with the floor laid with both wood and tiles and the tabletops formed by hardwood from Chiang Mai’s Hang Dong district perched on legs of steel. Chairs are upholstered in a deep blue fabric that matches the place settings and underlines the Mediterranean feel.
“In the same spirit as Cocotte, we offer a great selection of top-quality artisanal products cooked using Michelin-starred techniques. We also use a large selection of ingredients from the Royal Projects such as organic chicken, vegetables and fruits,” says Maxence Le Bartz, co-founder of the Kitchen Group that now operates 18 restaurants in Phuket, Samui and Pattaya.
Pesca is bigger than Cocotte, catering for roughly 140 diners. It’s also home to a delicatessen and cheese station where diners can make their selection from more than 100 kinds of cheeses and cold cuts. 
The bar and live plancha (grill) inhabit the alfresco dining area and the seafood and meats are cooked over charcoal in a Kamado Joe BBQ ceramic grill that insulates and circulates heat while giving a robust wood-fired flavour. 
“Thais love seafood and our kitchen at Cocotte is too small to serve a large selection. We set up Pesca to meet the demand. We provide a big selection of oysters carefully selected from Ireland, Japan and the US. We’ve also worked with Caviar House of Bangkok to produce two kinds of caviar – Beluga and Royal Oscietra. However, we try to use local, organic and sustainable produce as much as we can,” adds Le Bartz.

Artisan Board

As suggested by its name – pesca is Spanish for fishing – the restaurant plays with the sea-to-table concept and matches this with a strong “terra” (land) menu from which carnivores can pick tender Iberico pork, Australian wagyu beef and lamb.
A good start is the Artisan Board (Bt920) featuring three kinds of cheese and cold cuts based on the chef’s recommendations of the today. You have an option to select your favourite items from the display and pay Bt590, Bt980 and Bt1,270 for a board with three, five and seven items respectively. They’re served with delicious home-made bread and butter.
On the day I visited, the chefs were offering Brillat Savarin Truffle cheese, a semi-soft and creamy concoction infused with truffles, cows’ milk cheese Camembert and St Nectaire soft cheese. They came together with San Daniele ham, Chorizo Iberico, and saucisson. 

 Egg Caviar

Tapas fans can go for Egg Caviar that uses organic eggs from the Royal Projects. Creamy egg mousse, anchovies, asparagus are served inside the shells in an artful egg carton presentation. Bread soldiers and Oscietra caviar top each egg.
The Beetroot X Burrata (Bt350) is confit and pickled beetroot, beetroot sorbet and burratta mousse seasoned with truffle oil and crispy walnut and is both light and refreshing. 

Mousse

Perfect for sharing is the Mousse (Bt2,990) - a plancha platter with seafood and meats. The wooden board is piled high with half a Maine lobster, an Alaskan King crab, four black tiger prawns, tuna steak, blood sausage Black Pudding, grilled rump beef, lamb rack and Thai Northern-style spiced sausage sai oua and is served with grilled vegetables and spicy Isaan-style jaew, BBQ and Puttanesca sauces. Other sauce options include Thai-style spicy seafood, Bearnaise, Hollandaise, aioli and spicy mayonnaise.

Paella

Among the best-selling dishes is the classic Spanish rice dish Paella (Bt2,400 for two and Bt4,400 for four) that artfully blends Bomba rice, Maine lobster, chicken, chorizo, clams, mussels, octopus, bell peppers, green peas and lobster bisque. The portion for two is quite large and would probably more than satisfy four Thai diners.

Royal Spaghetti 

Also worth trying is Royal Spaghetti (Bt1,290 for one and Bt2,390 for two), which comes with half a lobster, mussels, Hokkaido scallops, Carabineros red prawns, razor clams and Hokkaido sea urchin. Don’t forget to tell the waiter whether you want your pasta cooked al dente or soft. Then there’s the luxurious Pizza Souffle Truffle (Bt590), a puffy pizza on a bed of tomato sauce topped with grilled mixed vegetables and truffle shavings. 

Lamb Tomahawk 

Carnivores will love Lamb Tomahawk featuring a rack of grilled Australian lamb served with Bearnaise, Puttanesca and spicy jaew sauces along with mashed mustard potatoes and apple bacon mac & cheese on the side. Costing Bt3,450 for 800 grams of lamb, this platter easily feeds four.
Do save room for dessert. For a refreshing and tangy flavour, opt for Lemon X Praline (Bt310), which combines crispy chocolate praline with lemon mousse, gianduja ganache, lemon curd and hazelnut. 

Lemon X Praline 

Or check out the Frozen Pinacolada (Bt290), which is based on the Pina Colada cocktail of rum, coconut cream and frozen pineapple and comes with a dome-shaped meringue on a bed of pineapple-rum jelly.
Restaurateur Le Bartz and his team will soon be embarking on a third adventure with the opening in December of Mozza by Cocotte at the EmQuartier mall offering traditional Italian delicacies.

MARVELS FROM THE MED
Pesca Mar & Terra Bistro on Ekamai Soi 12 opens daily from 11am to 3pm, and from 6 to midnight. 
Call (063) 267 7778 or visit www.Pesca-Bangkok.com.