Returning to Bangkok after stints living abroad in Melbourne and Singapore, Kong Kangwarnklai saw that in the city's rush to embrace foreign ideals and influences, native "Thainess" was becoming something of an antiquated concept.
"The funny thing is that the trend in Thailand these days is quite Westernized," he says.
"Somehow, though, you need to be able to identify your roots."
Kangwarnklai's answer to that is Tep Bar, which he co-founded in 2015 with three partners.
Housed within a two-story, century-old shophouse in the buzzy Soi NaNa area on the fringes of Chinatown, Tep Bar's Thainess manifests itself in everything from cocktails mixed with ya dong (a sort of local herbal whiskey) and other local ingredients to nightly live performances of traditional Thai music.
Most striking in this space are the swaths of gold-covered brick exposed amongst otherwise concrete walls -- a clever nod to ancient times when the Siamese buried golden Buddhas in cement to hide them from invaders.