The ten-seat table where dinner has a score

Just recently, we found ourselves sitting at the chef’s counter of a restaurant tucked down a side street near Chinatown – the kind you could almost miss. Peek inside and you might catch the soft glow of a charcoal grill, the blur of a hand turning something over the flames. Inside, the light is warm and low, pooling over idiosyncratic paintings and a quiet army of cat figurines.

This is Nothing Sacred, the ten-seat chef’s table from Grammy Award-winning producer-turned-chef Alex Jarvis and his partner, artist and restaurateur Nicole Scott. Here, dinner is never just dinner: each course arrives with its own music, composed by Alex to match the rhythm of the plate. The effect is intimate without being precious – a room designed to feel like home, but one where the home-cooked meal has been replaced by something far stranger and more deliberate.

What sets the experience apart is the music, curated and composed by Jarvis, a two-time Grammy-winning producer, to accompany each dish – a soundtrack for the palate, unfolding in harmony with the flavours on the plate. Conceived together, Jarvis and Scott, an artist and restaurateur, have crafted a space where food, music, and art collide, redefining what an intimate dining experience can be.

We were curious – how do two creatives so rooted in the music world pivot to a restaurant venture, and what does it take to translate their artistry from stage and studio to kitchen and table? So we asked everything.

The door

There’s just a little sign outside Nothing Sacred. Just an emerald-green wall, a yellow door and a single square window, where the faint orange lick of a charcoal grill cuts through the Bangkok dusk. From the pavement in old town, you can just about make out the glint of a copper pan, the silhouette of a chef turning something over fire. Inside, it’s warmth incarnate – idiosyncratic paintings, an amber glow that feels less like restaurant lighting and more like the forgiving shade of a late-afternoon sunbeam, and a scattering of feline figurines.

Alex and Nicole, partners in both life and work, have compressed a decade of shared creativity into 10 seats a night. Alex is a two-time Grammy winner turned chef; Nicole, an artist and restaurateur whose hands seem to be in everything from crochet coasters to the wine list. Their concept is as much about listening as tasting: each 10-course menu is paired with music Alex composes specifically for the evening.

‘We knew we wanted it to feel like our home,’ Nicole says. ‘Not just in the way it looks, but in the way people are welcomed.’

From tour buses to tasting menus

Their route here isn’t linear. Nicole toured as a singer from the age of 11; Alex was in kitchens by 13 and drumming even earlier. They met in college in Canada, fell in love, and eventually moved to Nashville, where they spent a decade making music – until immigration policy and a collapsing industry during the pandemic forced a change of plan.

The pivot was Congee Boy, a Thai-Chinese pop-up in Canada serving steaming bowls of rice porridge. It was as much about community as cooking, but they closed it at the height of its success to chase a more permanent dream in Bangkok.

‘Alex lived here when he was 18,’ Nicole says. ‘Thailand was always in the back of our minds. The food at Congee Boy came from here, and Alex always said this is the best place in the world to cook. It’s not just the ingredients – it’s the kind of diners you get in Bangkok. People come here hungry in every sense.’

Old Town, with its tangle of temples, markets and half-forgotten shopfronts, was the only location they considered. They’d had photos of the neighbourhood hanging in Congee Boy for years. ‘We didn’t even have to talk about it,’ she adds. ‘We just knew.’

A soundtrack you can taste

On paper, the idea of a ‘sound-and-supper lab’ sounds like a gimmick. In reality, it’s more like being inside a film, where the score and the story bleed into one another. Alex writes each piece to mirror the arc of the meal: a slow, low-voiced Celine Dion sample might slip under a dish of grits as an homage to their Nashville years, while sharper, brighter notes might arrive with something citrus-cut and briny.

‘I don’t overthink it,’ Alex says. 

“It’s the same process as cooking – pull from what you have, what means something to you, and let it evolve.”

The soundtrack isn’t just background music; it’s the restaurant’s other half. In one section, the pitch-shifted Celine vocal feels like a secret handshake between the couple, their shared history pressed into vinyl. Nicole calls that her favourite moment. ‘It’s the sound of my childhood, but reimagined by him. That’s us.’

The fermenter’s library

If the music tells their story, the menu is its diary – not linear, but layered. Alex is obsessive about fermentation, using it to stretch the life and deepen the flavour of each ingredient. He speaks about his fermentations like some chefs speak about wine, recalling batches by taste memory alone.

‘Fermentation is my seasoning,’ he says. 

“I’m at Khlong Toei market almost every day, even on my days off. I come back with things I’ve never seen before, and I’m inspired by the people who sell them.”

Some of the ferments travelled with them from Canada: a few vinegars, a clutch of SCOBYs, talismans from their earlier kitchen. ‘They were our starting point,’ Alex explains. ‘They’ll always be part of the story, even as the collection grows.’

One of his most telling dishes might be their Issan chocolate mousse with prawn-head caramel and grasshopper garum – a Frankenstein of technique, thrift and instinct. ‘It sounds crazy, but it eats like something familiar. That’s what I want.’

Hosting as an art form

Nothing Sacred doesn’t do table-turning. There’s one seating a night, ten people max. Nicole describes it less as service and more as hosting – tending to the room like a conductor might a chamber ensemble.

‘If it’s a smaller group, we work harder to keep conversation flowing,’ she says. ‘It’s not about being formal. It’s about making people feel looked after. They might forget the exact dish or song, but they’ll remember how they felt.’

 

Nicole’s role covers everything that isn’t fire and knife. She is GM, sommelier, bartender, curator, coaster-maker, napkin-ironer. Alex works in broad strokes; Nicole handles the details that make the whole space hum. ‘I’ll spend hours finding the right fabric for a curtain or sanding down a piece of furniture. He’ll be in the kitchen or the studio. 

“We’re working towards the same feeling, without having to agree on it. It’s just who we are.”

The next course

For now, the couple’s ambitions are modest but deliberate. They’re planning to add balcony seating to keep the experience communal without sacrificing intimacy. They’ve also launched House of Koji, a side project selling their shoyu and other ferments. ‘Our house-made shoyu is magic, if we do say so ourselves.’

Awards – whether Grammys or Michelin stars – are not the point. ‘Those things don’t change you the way you think they will,’ Alex says. ‘You have to enjoy the process.’

What they want guests to take away is harder to measure. ‘Reconnection,’ Nicole answers without hesitation. ‘We don’t want to be another Instagram stop,’ Nicole says. ‘We want people to leave remembering what it felt like, not just what they ate or heard.

‘With themselves, with creativity, with community. We want people to leave feeling inspired, a little lighter, and maybe a little braver.’

As the last of the diners filter out, the soundtrack fades, and the grill’s coals dim to ash. From the window, the old town night is back to its usual quiet. Inside, Nothing Sacred still feels like it’s holding its breath – waiting for tomorrow’s 10 seats, tomorrow’s soundtrack, tomorrow’s telling of the same, ever-evolving story.

And in a city whose culinary scene is increasingly global, transient and curated for quick thrills, that feels radical. In 10 seats, with charcoal smoke curling over a dish of fermented seafood, and a soundtrack that bends memory and expectation, Nothing Sacred stakes its claim as both sanctuary and stage – a place where Bangkok’s noise becomes part of the art, where two creators shape a night that will linger long after the door is closed.