Chef Ton
The chef whose restaurant was named the best in Asia. In our kitchen, on our schedule.
Thitid “Ton” Tassanakajohn — Le Du, Nusara, Baan — on the Thailand episode of Maximum Foodie. Booking a chef at this level is not a production problem. It is a relationship problem, and it is the one most producers cannot solve.
In 2023 Le Du was named the best restaurant in Asia by Asia's 50 Best, and Nusara took third in the same list. Chefs in that bracket are not short of camera crews asking, and their kitchens run on a service clock that does not bend for television.
What gets you in is not a bigger budget. It is that somebody in the room already knows you, and knows the material will be treated seriously.
Seven seasons of Maximum Foodie have been built on exactly this — long relationships with chefs, restaurateurs and fixers across Asia, maintained between productions rather than switched on when a shoot is booked.
It is why the series can put a fine-dining kitchen and a night market in the same half hour without either feeling like a set-up: both doors open, because both have been knocked on before.
The practical version for a commissioner: the casting on our shows is not aspirational. It is a list of people who will take the call.
Access at the top of a market, in territory, without a fixer-of-last-resort scramble two weeks out. For a broadcaster that means a running order you can actually schedule against. For a destination partner it means the food story in their market gets told by the people who define it.
- Recognition
- Le Du — No. 1, Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2023
- Also
- Nusara — No. 3, Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2023
- Territory
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Carried by
- Maximum Foodie — 60+ territories
Maximum Foodie — six seasons and counting, 60+ territories
Access you can schedule against.
Standing relationships with chefs, properties and fixers across Asia-Pacific and EMEA — maintained between productions, not assembled for one.