Baan Taipei

Thai home cooking rarely travels well — the instinct to adapt, to soften, to make it palatable for a foreign audience tends to strip out exactly what makes it worth eating. Baan Taipei resists that instinct. The concept behind the Bangkok original was always domestic in scale and intention: handmade curries, family-style portions, the kind of food that doesn't photograph as neatly as it tastes. That ethos crossed into Taipei intact, brought by Bangkok chef Thitid Tassanakajohn — whose restaurant Le Du holds a Michelin star — in partnership with Taiwanese chef Richie Lin, making this the first overseas outpost of the Baan brand. The menu holds to the Bangkok template: red, yellow, green, sour, and massaman curries prepared by hand, alongside dishes like crispy fried pork strips, beef cheek massaman curry, lemongrass crispy roast chicken, and pandan leaf-wrapped chicken. These are not reinterpretations — they are the dishes. The Bangkok Baan earned Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition on the strength of this same cooking, and the Taipei branch has received Michelin Plate recognition in its own right. Pricing sits in the mid-range for Taipei's East District, with a reported minimum spend of NTD 600 per person and most dishes falling between NTD 300 and NTD 500 before service charge. The room is built to feel unhurried. Wooden tables, rattan chairs, terrazzo floors, and brass accents give the space a tropical weight that reads more like a Bangkok townhouse than a Taipei restaurant. A small courtyard and a basement private room accommodating up to 20 guests extend the options for groups. The address — off Dunhua South Road in Daan District, close to Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT — places it in a neighbourhood already dense with serious dining, which makes the deliberate informality of the format here a considered choice rather than a default.