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\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n When Calcutta-born, Bangkok-based chef Gaggan Anand parted ways with his investors in 2019, he closed the first iteration of his very successful Bangkok restaurant, Gaggan, which served creative cuisine influenced by India, Thailand and other locales around the world. Just after that, Anand and those he worked with closely made a decision: They\u2019d open something new together as soon as possible. But they would do it entirely on their own terms. This included how they\u2019d serve the drinks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n In the world of wine, there is a universe of possibilities when it comes to selection, pricing, what to offer by the glass or by the bottle. It\u2019s rare to encounter a complete outlier in terms of wine service. Enter the second Gaggan, now the No. 9 restaurant in the world on the World\u2019s 50 Best list, where sommelier Vladimir Kojic allows diners only one decision about his mandatory drink pairing: alcoholic or non. On top of that, he provides generous top-ups, but absolutely no wine list, no upsells, nothing by the bottle or glass, and no substitutions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Kojic, who has worked alongside Anand for a decade, chooses the wines he believes go best with the meal, leaning heavily into his own expertise with some of the lesser-known wines of Mitteleuropa, as well as Japanese sake and a range of low-intervention wines from around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n
Kojic and Gaggan stand by the decision to offer only one wine pairing as an essential part of their shared endeavor. It allows Kojic to champion a set of producers he loves, to share their wine and their stories with his customers, and to focus exclusively on what he believes in. Below, Kojic explains the origins of this novel form of wine service and the joys\u2014and challenges\u2014of always determining exactly what Gaggan diners will drink each night.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n When guests come to a restaurant and you give them a set menu for food, they\u2019re OK with that. But if you only offer a wine pairing, it\u2019s kind of like, no, I want to choose my bottle. In 2019, when we broke with our partners, we were talking about opening a new restaurant. That restaurant would be smaller, only 14 seats, and a place where we would do 100 percent what we want to do. <\/span>Gaggan asked me, \u201cWhat do you think if you offer the guests A, B, C wine pairings?\u201d For me, it doesn\u2019t make sense. One guy is going to drink Salon, and another guy is going to drink grower Champagne? I said, \u201cAre we doing one thing or are we just giving choices for the guests to order? Same as the food. Why not offer three choices with the menu?\u201d And then he said, \u201cFuck it. We do only one thing. If you\u2019re a guest and you\u2019re coming to our restaurant and this is your fixed menu for the food, it should be the same for the drinks.\u201d This is how we started in 2019. And we are still doing it. Probably we\u2019re not going to stop doing it until the restaurant closes down.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Also, I found that if I have a wine list, it will really break the service that we have. So imagine Gaggan is explaining to 14 people at the same time<\/span> what they\u2019re eating with a 10-minute story, and then the guests during that are like, \u201cI want to see the wine list.\u201d It\u2019s just a mess.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n Sometimes the guests complain. A few days ago I had five guests [who] just stood up in the middle of dinner and left. We were only halfway through the menu. Then you ask yourself, should we change something? Should we give in? But the point is then you\u2019re going back to satisfying everybody. Our whole idea is: Can we build a restaurant if we only do what <\/span>we<\/span><\/i> want to do? As Gaggan says, we are not a restaurant for everybody.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n We did an event with a Korean chef last year. One guy, in the middle of dinner, said to Gaggan, \u201cI love the food so much, but your sommelier is killing me with this wine. He is completely ruining my experience.\u201d The guy said to me, \u201cCan you open something classic?\u201d I said, \u201cI don\u2019t have it. I have these nine wines for tonight and that\u2019s it. I\u2019ll top you up.\u201d And the guy called me to go outside the dining room. He was crying. I looked at him and I said, \u201cMan, you\u2019re a grown-up. Are you really crying about this?\u201d He says, \u201cYou are destroying my experience.\u201d I said, \u201cI can\u2019t believe this. You\u2019re a 40-plus-year-old man. Just behave.\u201d He really wanted classic stuff. He was anti-natural, basically.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n Our chefs, they\u2019re doing 22 courses. I definitely didn\u2019t want to do 22 wines because I\u2019ve found that\u2019s way too much alcohol. I decided on nine wines, because for me, after nine it\u2019s really a shit show. I\u2019m trying to pair these nine wines with the 22 courses. The chef never repeats. So you never find the same ingredient, you never find the same texture and you never find the same flavor. So, I thought if he\u2019s doing that, I\u2019ll do the same thing with my wines. So I\u2019ll do nine wines, but I will never repeat the texture, flavor or any similarities. If I serve one ros\u00e9, I\u2019m not going to serve another ros\u00e9. If I serve one deep orange wine, I\u2019m not going to serve two deep orange wines. It\u2019s going to be something with less maceration. Also, I\u2019m trying not to repeat the same glass. So when you come you have nine different wines, all different flavors and different glassware. You are on a journey.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n I love to start with Champagne because it\u2019s a great start to the meal, and people are still confused [by the set pairing] and nobody complains about Champagne. If I start with orange wine, people will be like, \u201cFuck, where are we?\u201d But when you start with bubbles\u2014and it\u2019s always grower, always a small producer\u2014everybody likes it. It\u2019s a good welcome. So it\u2019s easy to go forward.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Again, we are not a restaurant for everybody. I\u2019m not serving natural wines because of the hype; it\u2019s really something I truly believe in. Also, it\u2019s not only natural wines, it\u2019s really people that I want to support. The older I\u2019m getting, the more important it is who is behind the wine than the wine by itself.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Most of the time, I\u2019m serving Mazi\u00e8re. I remember when I visited [the winemaker, Fabrice Monnin]. He\u2019s a one-man show. He does everything by himself. When you see what they do\u2014it\u2019s so niche, it\u2019s so artisanal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n Gaggan\u2019s idea is this: I don\u2019t care how much money you have. When you come to my home, there\u2019s 14 people and you\u2019re all having the same service from us. You\u2019re having the same food. There\u2019s no add-ons. And you\u2019re having the same wine. We want to put equality on the table. <\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \u2014Sommelier Vladimir Kojic, as told to Punch contributor Tom Downey<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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