Thomas Chien @ Kaohsiung

I was curious of Michelin restaurants and eateries in Kaohsiung, not having any chance to try any of them in previous travels to the port city in southern Taiwan. In this recent visit with Princess, we tried a few of them, starting with Thomas Chien’s namesake French restaurant.

Located in Kaohsiung, Taiwan,  Thomas Chien Restaurant  is widely reviewed as&nb sp;southern Taiwan’s landmark modern French fine dining address. It combines the world’s and Taiwan’s best and highest quality ingredients for its light style of French Nouvelle cuisine.⁠ Not only has Chef Chien got culinary acumen and all the classic French techniques, he also cares for his carbon footprint and sustainability of food sources. Because of that, the restaurant was awarded the Green Star from the Michelin Guide.

The restaurant has undergone an impressive zero-waste transformation guided by TaG Living, a local design studio, in 2014 using 3D printed furnitures that used repurposed waste as the filament.  At its centre lie three arc-shaped sculptures, whose parabolic grooves allow sunlight during the day and interior lighting at night. Oyster shells transformed into concrete-free paints create textured surfaces, while ‘ghost’ nets, once an ecological threat, find new life as organic recycled carpets.

Chef Chien is committed to minimising the carbon footprint and priorities products from districts around Kaohsiung. Chef Chien personally visits small farmers across Taiwan, prioritising premium local ingredients. These ingredients include organic rice from Daliao, non-toxic shrimp from Mituo, and ecologically farmed Queensland grouper from Yongan. The local origin of these products ensures a freshness that Chef Chien values.

Amuse bouche

The degustation menu started with four amuse bouche featuring four different presentation methods and four different textures and flavours.

Truffle, mushroom 松露、菌菇

The first small bite was a truffle mushroom cream sandwiched between two thin wafers made to look like shaved truffle. Very pretty but it tasted like no real truffle was used.

Tuna, avocado, nori 鮪魚、酪梨、海苔

Next bite, a tuna ceviche made from diced tuna delicately balanced inside a nori shell and served with a drop of avocado cream. I was so afraid to drop the insides of the square box.

Scallop, mango, lemon aiyu jelly 干貝、芒果、檸檬愛玉

Aiyu 愛玉 (aka ice jelly or “ogio” in Hokkien) is a jelly made from the gel from the seeds of the awkeotsang creeping fig found in Taiwan. The yellow gelatinous compound is almost tasteless and borrows its flavours from the liquids that it is usually served with, normally as a dessert with syrup. This is the first time I had this jelly with seafood as an appetiser. Very refreshing.

Crab, white asparagus, mullet roe 蟹肉、白蘆筍、烏魚子

The final bite was a cold egg custard with shredded Hokkaido horsehair crab meat, white asparagus and mullet roe powder. It was the best of the four amuse bouche, like a miniature chawanmushi.

Starters

After the introductory bites, we continued with four more starters – small courses that featured a bit more complex preparation and presentation.

Red shrimp, tomato 胭脂蝦、蕃茄

These red shrimps 胭脂蝦 are crustaceans caught from the deep waters off the northeast coast of Taiwan and Guishan Island, Yilan. While they are not specialty like langoustines or Argentinian red shrimps, they are still very sweet and delicious. The shrimp was served raw in this starter.

I am perplexed by how they named the dishes, as the cherry tomatoes were not exactly the highlight of this dish. Mysterious drops of sauces were randomly placed across the plate while a big blob of sauce covered the shrimp. While the plate was very pretty, the only flavour I could remember was the sweet umami of the shrimp.

Salmon, seasonal vegetables 燻鮭魚、大地時蔬

Inspired by his 2013 collaboration with Alain Passard of Arpège, Chef Chien created a vegetarian menu that came up with this dish called 大地時蔬 or seasonal vegetables.

To me, it looked like a bag of supermarket premix salad served with a sliced smoke salmon. There was almost no dressing except for some pickled elements in the mix, as well as a smudge of avocado cream. It was the lightest of all sales I had in fine dining.

Abalone, artichoke, abalone liver sauce 鮑魚、朝鮮薊、鮑魚肝醬

For a restaurant that believes in sustainability and reducing food wastage, artichoke is always a challenge as only 10% of the plant is edible. Don’t get me wrong, I am not judging here, as I for one love artichokes, especially fresh ones. So you can imagine how excited I am to see this dish.

The braised abalone was sliced and sautéed together with sliced artichoke hearts and served with abalone liver foam. Unlike typical Japanese style of serving the liver as a sauce, this very light treatment was very subtle. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this combination of artichoke and abalone.

Daily fish, seaweed, lily purée 鮮魚、海藻、百合

This was my favourite starter among the quartet – fresh fish was made into a paste and delicately built into a brick interlaced with asparagus, served a dollop of caviar and a side of lily bulb puree.

The overall flavour was delicious – I loved the pairing of caviar with the fish and the creamy lily bulb puree. The texture was like fish cake and taste like that too.

Main Course 主菜

While everyone gets the amuse bouche and starters, each one of us had to pick from three main courses. Luckily we were three pax and could have one of each.

Duck breast, mulberry and kumquat sauce 胭脂鴨胸、桑葚金桔酱汁

I ordered the duck breast, which looked promising when it came. Canard Rouge  (or “胭脂鴨”) is a specialty-bred duck from Changhua, Taiwan, inspired by legendary French pressed duck (canard au sang) from Paris’s  La Tour d’Argent. It features a distinct pinkish hue resembling rouge, delicate and thin skin, and a specialised slaughter method that retains blood in the bones for deep, rich flavours.  

The meat was very tender and the skin was perfectly crispy. But the overall taste was rather bland as the meat was under salted, a phenomena that I observed during this gastronomic tour of Kaohsiung. The mulberry and kumquat sauce didn’t help either – fruit and sweet, not savoury. Princess took all my beetroots as she loves this tuber.

Lamb loin, spice butter 羊里肌、香料奶油

Single medallion of lamb loin on its bone, pan-fried to form a delicious breaded crust on the outside.

The lamb was cooked to perfection, but again the portion was so little that wasn’t much to be shared.

US beef short ribs steak, mustard-sherry vinegar 美國牛小排、芥末雪莉醋

The third main course on offer was a minuscule piece of Taiwan-style short ribs. Like Wang’s Steak, the beef has been marinated before pan-grilled for the Milliard effect. Served with an equally small piece of potato mille-feuille and a single stalk of asparagus. The beef short rib was pathetically small that you cannot even form an opinion.

Dessert 甜點

Finally, we ended with a dessert and petit fours.

Peach, watermelon, mint 桃子、西瓜、薄荷

Momo peach season has just started, and these were the first desserts that we had this year that featured the beautiful fruit. The dessert consisted of two peach tartlet on a cereal base with creme fraiche, one decorated with a slice of peach, another with a peach gummy. The dollop of peach sorbet rounded up the plating.

While the sweetness and fragrance of momo came through, the satisfaction of eating a fresh mono peach was not replicable with these pastries.

Coffee or tea, mignardises 咖鮮/茶，茶點

While we were served with tea and coffee, the petit fours were presented – azuki beans and chestnut yokan wrapped with an edible rice paper, peach sorbet with chocolate shell, and matcha tartlet. All of them were delicious and a sweet ending to the evening of pretty dishes and impeccable service.

What do I think after a dinner where everything was instagrammable? Something is missing with every course, but it was difficult to pinpoint because they were all so pretty. It was like a fly attracted to the blue light, but not knowing what it’s getting to. Take the signature garden salad – dazzling but tasteless. One thing I realised was missing in this dinner was the fragrance of the dishes as they were served. Nothing permeated through the atmosphere, not even the main courses which was perplexing to me. Competent? Yes. Worthy of a star? Maybe not.

Thomas Chien Restaurant
11 Chenggong 2nd Road, Cianjhen District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Tel : +886 (07) 536-9436 (Reservations)

Visited Jul 2026

Michelin Kaohsiung Guide Green Star 2023 – 2026