In the spring of 2019, the food world watched with intrigue and unease as Gaggan Anand—flamboyant, fiercely independent, and never one to toe a line—walked away from the very restaurant that had made his name. The original Gaggan, a trailblazing fine-dining temple in Bangkok known for progressive Indian cuisine and a punk-rock attitude, was shuttered at the height of its acclaim. At the time, it was ranked No. 4 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, a global juggernaut. But for Anand, success was not reason enough to stay.

He left behind investors, contracts, and the traditional hierarchies of ownership. And within a year, he rebuilt everything from scratch—this time with a different kind of ambition. He wasn’t interested in simply reopening his old restaurant with a new address. He wanted to reimagine what a restaurant could be when liberated from compromise. The second Gaggan—just “Gaggan” again, no suffix or iteration—was born out of rebellion. But it is defined by precision.

Today, Gaggan 2.0 (as it’s casually referred to) sits comfortably at No. 9 on the World’s 50 Best list. But more impressive than its accolades is its attitude. Here, the experience is total. It’s not a restaurant you walk into hoping to piece together a meal. It’s a performance. A story. A provocation. It’s cuisine as conversation. And in a world increasingly obsessed with customization and consumer choice, Gaggan has done something radically countercultural: it has eliminated choice.

No Menus, No Substitutions, No Compromises

The dining experience at Gaggan starts with a few surprises, not least of which is what’s missing: there is no menu. Diners are given only the vaguest hints of what they’re in for. The restaurant serves a 15- to 20-course tasting menu, shaped by Anand’s global influences and emotional palate, but its content shifts constantly—sometimes nightly. Each dish arrives as a moment, a memory, or a metaphor. Guests are told stories, sometimes through poetry, sometimes through emojis, and often through unapologetic laughter.

There’s no pretense of culinary orthodoxy here. You might eat a reimagined Indian street snack made with foie gras. You might slurp something through a pipette. You might be asked to eat with your hands. And at no point will you be asked what you want. That, Anand insists, is not the point.

“You come to Gaggan to let go,” he has said. It’s a sentiment that threads through the entire operation—from the food to the music (often loud, often unexpected), to the service, to the wine.

The Wine Rebellion: Vladimir Kojic’s Singular Pairing

Perhaps the boldest—and most quietly revolutionary—move at Gaggan lies not on the plate, but in the glass.

In most high-end restaurants, wine service is treated as a delicate ballet of labels, vintages, and options. A wine list is a sacred document. Guests are courted with pairings, upsells, substitutions, and à la carte bottle offerings. But at Gaggan, all of that has been discarded. In its place is a single, pointed question: Would you like your drink pairing with alcohol, or without?

That’s it.

The man behind this system is Vladimir Kojic, a Serbian-born sommelier with a classical background and a rebellious streak that matches Anand’s. Kojic has become something of a legend among those in the know—not because of what he serves, but because of how he serves it.

There is no wine list. No bottles for sale. No glasses to choose from. If you want a specific wine, you’re out of luck. If you want a bottle of Champagne to impress your date, you’re in the wrong place. If you don’t like what’s poured, Kojic might give you a top-up anyway. Or he might not. He decides.

It’s not arrogance. It’s philosophy.

Kojic’s pairings are built as a narrative arc—not just a sequence of wines, but a dialogue with the food, the environment, the emotion of the night. A given menu might include a Slovenian skin-contact orange wine, followed by a biodynamic Pinot Noir from Germany, followed by a small-batch Japanese sake. A delicate low-intervention cider might sit next to a bold Austrian Grüner. He draws from the fringes and the center. He pairs food not just with region, but with rhythm.

What makes this even more radical is the lack of pricing tiers. There is no upsell. Everyone gets the same pairing. There are no second-class experiences. Everyone is on the ride together.

Trust, Not Transaction

In doing away with the traditional structures of wine service, Gaggan has accomplished something few restaurants dare to try: it centers trust. You are not the customer in command. You are the guest in someone’s vision. And for that vision to work, you have to surrender.

For many diners—especially those accustomed to luxury service models where preference is king—this is disorienting. But for others, it’s liberating. It’s rare to go out for dinner and be truly surprised. Gaggan and Kojic make surprise the standard.

This is the antithesis of the Instagram-friendly, crowd-sourced dining moment where guests come armed with expectations. Instead, Gaggan cultivates intimacy through authority. It strips away the illusion of control to deliver something more honest: an experience that speaks, that unfolds, that doesn’t ask for permission.

A New Language of Luxury

What’s happening at Gaggan is more than contrarianism—it’s a redefinition of what luxury means in the 2020s. For years, luxury dining has followed a predictable script: rare ingredients, white linen, bespoke attention. But Gaggan proposes another model. Here, luxury is about narrative, not status. It’s about trust, not taste level. And most importantly, it’s about freedom from decision.

The lack of a wine list becomes a metaphor. You’re not just being denied choice; you’re being invited to relinquish it. In a world of endless customization and pressure to optimize every detail of consumption, Gaggan asks: What happens when you simply let someone else take care of you?

That’s a rarer form of luxury. One rooted in vulnerability. One that transforms a meal into something theatrical, emotional, and maybe even transformative.

Gaggan’s Legacy, Rewritten

What makes Gaggan’s second life remarkable is not just that it resurrected a great restaurant. It’s that it rejected the blueprint of the first. Anand didn’t try to recreate what worked. He dismantled it. He took his experience, fame, and creative force, and rebuilt a dining room that feels like a working manifesto: of food as expression, of wine as poetry, of service as authorship.

This isn’t hospitality designed to please. It’s hospitality designed to move.

In the hands of lesser talents, this could come off as gimmick. But Gaggan and Kojic have earned the right to challenge the system because they’ve mastered the rules they’re now breaking. Their approach isn’t about rebellion for its own sake. It’s about creating something more alive.

And that’s why Gaggan isn’t just one of the best restaurants in the world. It’s one of the most necessary.

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