Tipsy Thaiger transports Thai cocktail bar scene to Roswell

Running a restaurant is incredibly hard work, but to hear Birdie Niyomkun tell it, researching restaurants before opening your own is a pretty great part of the job.

Niyomkun is a co-founder of the modern Thai cocktail bar Tipsy Thaiger in Roswell. Though she’s a veteran bartender in the metro Atlanta restaurant scene, the new restaurant is the first she’s opened as an owner.

But well before the first pandan gin and tonic was poured at Tipsy Thaiger, Niyomkun made a trip back to Thailand, the country of her birth, to explore its thriving beverage scene, she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Tipsy Thaiger opened in August in the Roswell Town Square development after spending two years mired in a renovation process overseen by the city’s Historic Preservation Commission. That extended development process allowed Niyomkun to do her research, assemble a team and refine her thoughtful cocktail menu.

Most visitors are likely to enter Tipsy Thaiger from the parking lot between Mill and Sloan streets, where the restaurant is marked by a subtle, square sign that features a tiger drawing.

Tipsy Thaiger looks like it could be any hip cocktail spot until you notice the shelves of Asian pantry products across from the bar. According to Niyomkun, the attractively organized open shelves aren’t just decoration - they’re a storage solution for the kitchen’s extra bottles of fish sauce, cans of coconut milk and a dozen other dry goods. Don’t expect to see dust gathering on anything.

Once the menu hits the table, there’s no mistaking where the food and drink originate. The menu is printed in Thai and English, and it features none of the Americanized Thai dishes like pad thai or tom yum soup.

Niyomkun described Tipsy Thaiger’s cuisine as “Thai bar food,” but it feels more elevated, thoughtful and complex than her characterization implies.

The cooking, done by the husband and wife chef team O Eakkapan Ngammuang and Belle Aphassorn Preedawan, shows serious precision in its execution. The crying Thaiger, a hanger steak dish, was served at an exacting medium-rare temperature, as recommended by our server. She-crab fried rice is served studded with generous hunks of crab meat and deeply flavored with the crab’s own fat; it’s accompanied by an intense fish sauce-based condiment that helps cut the richness.

The beverage menu is rounded out with a curated list of natural wines (another area of interest for Niyomkun), mostly Asian beers and a small sake selection. My only quibble with the service related to the rose sake I ordered, which happened to be very sweet and fruity. The server didn’t forewarn me that the robustly flavored sake, almost like a plum wine, was much different than the typical brew.