Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 04/06/2026 17:38:00

A small specialist culinary school in the PD Mansion on Soi Rung Rueang in the Samsen Nok district of central Bangkok, the Siam Carving Academy provides intensive courses in the traditional Thai art of fruit and vegetable carving. The academy is one of the few institutions anywhere in Thailand offering structured instruction in this distinctive traditional craft to international visitors and operates principally on a short-course basis for tourists and culinary professionals visiting Bangkok. The Thai art of fruit and vegetable carving, known formally as kae sa lak in the traditional Thai craft tradition, has been one of the most distinctive single elements of the traditional Thai royal court cuisine continuously since the late Sukhothai period of the fourteenth century. The principal traditional purpose of the craft was the decorative presentation of fresh fruit and vegetable garnishes alongside the various main dishes at the formal royal court banquets, with the various individual items carved into elaborate decorative shapes representing flowers, leaves, fish, birds and various mythological creatures. The academy was founded in the early 2000s by a senior Thai carving master who had previously worked in the principal Bangkok royal palace kitchens before establishing the independent training programme. The current senior instructor team includes several Thai master carvers each with at least twenty years of professional experience in traditional Thai carving, with the various individual instructors specialising in different sub-categories of the wider craft tradition including fruit carving, vegetable carving and the more elaborate three-dimensional sculptural carving. The standard course programmes include short half-day introductory sessions for casual visitors, full-day intermediate courses for visitors with some prior experience and structured multi-day intensive programmes for serious culinary students. The half-day introductory course typically covers the carving of two or three relatively simple items such as a watermelon basket, a carved orange flower and a small tomato rose. The intermediate full-day programme typically extends to around six or seven individual items including more elaborate floral compositions. The supplementary multi-day intensive programmes can extend to as long as four weeks for serious culinary professionals wishing to develop a comprehensive skill base in the wider craft tradition. The principal multi-day course materials cover both the traditional Thai carving tradition and the various contemporary international adaptations developed by Thai chefs working in international hotel kitchens. Most of the courses are conducted in English to accommodate the substantial international tourist demand, with bilingual Thai and English instruction also available for visitors from non-English-speaking backgrounds.