With a golden hand

HE IS Thailand's first celebrity chef, but Ian Kittichai says: "I'm less a celebrity and more a chef." Chef Kittichai has been a regular fixture on TV since 2001, when he began hosting the weekly cooking show Chef Mue Tong (The Golden Hand Chef), which is broadcast in over 70 countries; and since 2012, he has been one of the permanent chefs on the TV series Iron Chef Thailand.

Despite his fame, he feels uncomfortable about how chefs on TV are being seen as superstars, but says that being on TV has its benefits - for one thing, people get to know about him and go to his restaurants. "But then you have to be concerned about who you are and how you cook," he says. "Diners will want to know if you can really cook, or are you just a celebrity."

Rather than let the superstar label go to his head, Chef Kittichai says: "I always think about where I came from. I started as a chef, and not a celebrity. I worked my way up from the bottom, and climbed up the ranks."