Can fine dining become an agricultural project?
EBRU ERKE
Phuket’s first Michelin-starred restaurant, PRU, is doing far more than creating remarkable plates through its “jungle cuisine” philosophy and its exploration of Thai ingredients. It is also investing in the future of farmers, fishermen and forgotten products. The story of Dutch chef Jimmy Ophorst reminds us that sometimes gastronomy has the power to make an entire region visible again.
Is the true measure of a restaurant’s success its ability to source the best ingredients in the world, or its ability to rediscover the value of the place it calls home? One of the most fascinating transformations in gastronomy in recent years has unfolded around this very question. For decades, the strength of great restaurants was measured by the products they could bring in from around the world. Today, however, many of the most exciting restaurants have chosen a very different path.
Their question is no longer, “Where can we find the best ingredient in the world?” Instead, they ask: “How well do we truly know what our own geography has to offer?” PRU in Phuket is one of the restaurants shaped by precisely this philosophy.
Yet PRU’s story begins long before Michelin stars, awards, or fine dining techniques enter the picture. In fact, at the center of this story there is not even a restaurant. At its heart are farmers, fishermen, forgotten ingredients and what a Dutch chef saw when he looked at Thailand from the outside.
Jimmy Ophorst, the chef behind the restaurant, explains that when they founded PRU in Phuket ten years ago, they set themselves what was, at the time, a rather radical goal: To build a kitchen based entirely on Thai ingredients. A decision that may sound natural today was highly unusual in the Thai gastronomic landscape back then. “Nobody paid enough attention to Thai produce,” says Ophorst. “People simply didn’t take it seriously the way they do today. We wanted Thai ingredients to receive the respect they deserved and farmers to receive the value they deserved.” In many ways, that sentence captures the entire philosophy behind PRU.
Because the restaurant was never simply about cooking good food. Perhaps that is why, when I ask Ophorst whether he sees himself today as a chef, a farmer, a researcher or an ecosystem builder, he refuses to choose only one answer. “I suppose I’m a bit of all of them,” he says.
“I do everything I can to bring the very best to the restaurant and ultimately to the plate. But at the same time, I also work to improve the lives of our producers. We don’t only support them financially. We help them understand how to improve their crops, how to produce better quality ingredients and how to ask for the true value of what they produce.”
Today, many of the world’s best restaurants speak about sustainability. Yet sustainability often remains a concept confined within the walls of the kitchen. PRU’s approach feels somewhat different. Because the issue here is not merely about using local ingredients. It is about ensuring the continuation of local production itself.
Ophorst believes that fine dining can genuinely transform local agriculture. In fact, he sees PRU as a living example of exactly that. “We want the best for our farmers because that is the only way we as a restaurant can achieve the best ourselves.” Some restaurants buy ingredients from farmers. Others invest in the future of those farmers.
His answer to my question about what Michelin recognition changed for producers was equally interesting. When PRU first opened, many of the producers they worked with were focused primarily on volume, often at the expense of quality. Today, many of them have come to realise that producing less, but producing better, is economically far more sustainable.
Among all the stories Ophorst shared, the one that stayed with me most was about a mango farmer during the pandemic. During Covid, one of their producers was unable to sell his harvest. Prices had fallen so dramatically that leaving the fruit to rot seemed more sensible than harvesting it. When Ophorst heard about the situation, he decided to buy the farmer’s entire stock of 500 kilograms of mangoes. “The following year, I was the first person he called,” he says. “He was able to continue his business, and we had access to some of the best mangoes in the country.” What he said next perhaps summarised the entire conversation better than anything else: “These people are the reason I am able to live and work in this country. And thanks to them, I am able to show the world what this country truly has to offer.”
This philosophy extends far beyond mangoes. In southern Thailand, in the region of Trang, PRU has built a similar relationship with a family that has been producing peppercorns for five generations. There was a time when pepper from Trang travelled across the world through one of Asia’s most important trading ports. Over time, however, the product slowly disappeared from public consciousness. Three years ago, a local university approached Ophorst to ask whether he could help bring Trang pepper back into the spotlight. His answer was a promise to the farmer: “There will always be a dish on our menu representing your pepper until it becomes successful enough not to need us anymore.” Today, the farm produces only around 200 kilograms per year, and PRU purchases nearly half of it.
Perhaps sometimes a restaurant does more than create food. Sometimes it helps make forgotten ingredients visible again. When I ask Ophorst whether, as a foreign chef, he learned to understand Thailand through its producers rather than through its recipes, his answer is immediate: “That’s one hundred percent true. I have never read a Thai recipe in my life.” Instead, he explains, he learned through discovering unknown ingredients and through conversations with farmers, fishermen and producers.
One of Ophorst’s favourite ingredients is a fruit that has almost disappeared from public memory: The Ceylon Oak berry. As younger generations became less willing to climb trees that reach heights of 30 to 40 metres, the fruit gradually began to disappear. Until Ophorst met a farmer who was still harvesting it. Today, every year during its brief one-month season, he purchases the farmer’s entire production.
But perhaps no ingredient explains the philosophy of PRU better than durian. The restaurant’s now iconic dish began with an attempt to understand an ingredient that Ophorst initially disliked. “Durian represents Thailand in so many ways. It was impossible to run a restaurant based entirely on Thai ingredients and somehow not use durian,” he says. They spent six years developing a single dish. Not because of perfectionism, but because they refused to take shortcuts.
Finally, I ask Ophorst which three ingredients he would choose if he had to tell the story of Thailand through food alone. His answer comes quickly: Durian, peppercorn and mangosteen. In many ways, each tells its own story. One is a symbol of Thailand itself. One is a reminder of a forgotten past. The other proves that sometimes the world’s greatest ingredients are growing quietly in front of us all along.
Ten years from now, Ophorst hopes people will remember PRU as a project started by “a little Dutch boy with big dreams for Phuket.” He continues: “A project that changed the way people look at Thai produce, that helped elevate local ingredients to compete on the world stage, and that did so not by taking advantage of the community, but by helping it grow.”
Perhaps this is where the true success of some restaurants ultimately lies. Not simply in cooking great food, but in helping the places they inhabit see themselves differently.