London’s best Thai restaurants

It’s notoriously hard to get a booking at Singburi, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. The riveting, electrifying cooking by Sirichai Kularbwong is worth frequent calls to the family-run restaurant (his mother still manages the booking by phone) until you’ve managed to score a seat. Go in a group, order everything from the blackboard specials menu, and leave feeling like you’ve had one of the best-value meals of your life. From the vintage posters on the wall to journeying to the bathroom through the kitchen, and the personalised, energetic dishes, there’s something unforgettably idiosyncratic about the whole experience. The blackboard changes, but what doesn’t is the expert seafood cookery, awe-striking balance of the salads and depth of the curries. Top that up with the clams, moo krob (crispy pork belly), and salted fish rice, which are all legendary for good reason. 

Time Out tip It’s BYOB, so pop into the nearby Theatre of Wine, which has an excellent selection of craft beers and artisanal wines.

The much-awaited permanent spot from long-time nomads John and Desiree Chantarasak offers an original take on Thai food in a setting that feels like it was created by the lovechild of Denis Villeneuve and Pedro Almodóvar. Chantarasak is known for his reinterpretation of Thai cuisine through the lens of British ingredients, but if customers are under any illusions that that might mean restricting the thunderous spirit of Thai cooking, then the pungent sweet-and-sour broth offered to every guest will quickly undo them. The punctiliously executed menu is full of intrigue and carries the vision with intent, using impeccably sourced ingredients to represent everything from the hyper-zippy to richly warming ends of the Thai flavour spectrum. Start with an explosively enticing Carlingford oyster mantled in a vermillion-hued elixir made with sea buckthorn and fermented chilli. Continue with a pillowy flatbread topped with a medley of herbs, funky shrimp butter and saline molluscs. Other savoury highlights include radish cakes, wagyu ox tongue massaman, and a pork chop with a smoked chilli relish that’s both nectarean and sultry. If it’s unabashed ferocity you’re after, try wok-fired hogget, and follow it with a palate cleanser of milk ice cream with carrot, and an alphonso-esque sea buckthorn sauce. 

Time Out tip Explore the wine list, which has been smartly crafted to meld with Thai flavours, whether that’s more expected German and Austrian Riesling, or more leftfield skin-contact rose from Greece.

With its fierce curries and fearless commitment to offal, Kiln is a punk rock take on central London’s Thai offerings. It’s raw, high-tempo and not for the faint-hearted, but ultimately it’s all about head chef Meedu Saad’s excellent understanding of the Thai flavour palate that allows it to push customers to the edge of their Scoville-limit. With a commitment to seasonality at the forefront of the restaurant, the menu switches up a lot, but there’s always a healthy balance of grilled proteins, salads, curries, and stir-fried dishes. Two killer dishes that stay on the menu are the addictive aged cull yaw and cumin skewers; and the scintillatingly gelatinous clay pot baked glass noodles with tamworth belly and brown crab meat. Always order something from the grill, as well as a laab/laap, which will contain some majestically-seasoned raw or cooked meat and fish (depending on the protein) to wrap up in lettuce and herbs, and a sour curry, which jolts through your entire body to remind you you’re alive. If sweat hasn't trickled down your brow, you haven’t done it properly.

Time Out tip Grab a bar seat and watch the charcoal-powered open kitchen. The energy is rhythmic, chaotic and downright exhilarating.

Kiln’s Shoreditch cousin is brooding, buzzing and bustling. The fare is – as the name would suggest – somewhat propelled by grill-cooking. Like at Kiln, the aromatic salads and heat-driven laabs are always a hit. The BBQ beef heart with seasonally-switching flourish herbs makes effective use of the whole animal. Perhaps the greatest hit on the menu – and certainly the most playful and joy-inducing – is the must-order fried egg rice noodles and lardo. Accompany it all with a glass of Pét-Nat or orange wine, and look out for new-ish menu additions of fried chicken skin and fried chicken, which recently joined the justly hyped fish sauce chilli wings to form a holy trinity of poultry. 

Time Out tip Order at least two fish sauce chilli wings per person.

After his famed Belgravia restaurant Nahm closed in 2012, David Thompson’s rousing cuisine is now back for Londoners to enjoy. Opened in autumn 2024, this maximalist room belies an altogether more orchestrated cooking-style. He isn’t averse to punchy jolts and lashes across the palate, but the harmonisation of aromatics is spellbinding. Dishes are mostly inspired by southern Thailand and its borderlands, but Thompson’s quirky twists present you with flavour combinations that often feel entirely original. The mains section is strongest, so start with squid skewers, and then order a few plates to share. The cockle and thai basil salad offers a welcome temperature contrast, and as much of the sweet, smoky chilli paste should be scooped up alongside the plump, saline bivalves. Monkfish curry is velvety and warmingly massaman-like, whilst the satisfyingly crispy-edged vermicelli clay pot with black tiger prawns hums with tingly white pepper and the depth of a 20 year old single malt scotch. The Xian-esque lamb with cumin offers menacing, blackened morsels of bouncy meat and shallot chunks. It has a fearless, pulsating heat, but a taste so compelling you will have no choice but to keep punishing every crevice of your mouth.

Time out tip Order the grilled sticky rice with banana dessert, a parcel of scorched, coconut-rich joy.

Still full to the brim most nights after a decade, Som Saa’s enduring appeal can be put down to both its casual ambiance and the clarity and confidence of the food and drinks. Start with one of the Thai-inflected cocktails, such as the smoky but lively bambat potion, or the pert and zesty rak tong ham. There’s then two ways to go with the food; a fantastic-value set menu, with the option to add on their hallmark crispy seabass (you should) or a la carte. If you go for the latter, the raucously pungent and layered laab cakes are unmissable; the tiger prawn, lemongrass and cucumber herb salad is a refreshing and fragrant must, and though you’ll be very happy with any of the curry options, the gaeng panang neua kem (salted beef panang) is gloriously nutty and rich. Both desserts are excellent. There’s a salted palm sugar ice cream with turmeric grilled banana on the set menu, but with its gentle tropical funk and soothing feel, the sankaya mamuang khao nieo waan (mango custard with sticky rice and coconut cream) is also a great way to end the meal. 

Time Out tip With a dedicated page to Riesling, and a monthly wine special, they've thought a lot about the kinds of wine that complement the fiery complexity of Thai food.

The team behind Som Saa opted for a tighter concept with their second venue, which is based on the ‘golae’ cooking of southern Thailand, a style of cooking influenced by Muslim communities that migrated to the country from Malaysia. Dim, warm lighting gives the room an organic, relaxed feel, and lots of the menu is equally soothing, such as the luscious Phuket-style soy-braised middlewhite belly and ribs. If ferocious heat is what you’re after, order the gung siep dried prawn and shrimp paste relish, which will have you panting like a golden retriever. The highlights of the menu are, fittingly, the most sincerely ‘golae’ dishes. The grilled mussels with calamansi lime are undoubtedly one of London’s best mollusc bites, and the nutty chicken bamboo skewers are also excellent. Desserts are also brilliant. If you only have room for one, go for the mango duck-egg custard with sweet sticky rice. 

Time Out tip The bar seats surrounding the open kitchen are the best in the house, especially if you fix your eyes on the spectacle of those mussels caramelising.

The loud and fun Speedboat Bar has something of a cult following, and it isn’t difficult to see why. If it’s the scented, refined and delicately sour side of Thai food you’re after, though, Speedboat isn’t the place for that. What it excels at are the sweeter, spicier and heartier dishes of Yaowarat Road in Bangkok’s Chinatown. The chicken matches with green mango kerabu are good, but the greatest pleasure will come from comforting dishes such as stir-fried morning glory with soy bean sauce; beef tongue and tendon curry; minced beef with holy basil, which comes with a fried egg; and whole sea bream drenched in a rich, deep sauce. Speedboat is a place to let your most bibulous tendencies loose, with Singha towers, big serves, tropical cocktails and chasers galore. The pineapple pie with ube ice cream has rightfully earned its place as the signature dessert. It’s also open until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays, if you’ve had a few already and don’t fancy a kebab to soak it all up. 

Time Out tip the upstairs pool-table-turned-dinner table is an ideal spot for a boozy birthday dinner for a group of 10.

From the geometric-patterned, royal blue, vinyl tablecloths to the Singha beer towers, you might well have been teleported to a tiny eatery on a Thai island. The design is surreally well-researched, and the thrilling heat and sourness of many of the southern Thai dishes only adds to the experience. The hat yai fried chicken and miang are very good, and the fried sea bream salad is excellent, but the curry section is where the magic happens. Forego the more familiar beef massaman, and opt for less typical fish options. There’s gaeng som pla, or sour orange curry, with seabass, cha-om omelette and a tangy, bittersweet sauce offset by tropical papaya and pineapple. Even better is pad phet pla – technically in the stir fry section – with meltingly soft sea bream fillets in a fiery yet fragrant, lustrous sauce featuring, makrut lime, jungle herbs, and fresh green peppercorns. Accompany with flakey roti as well as rice, but not too much as you’ll need space in your pouch for the sublime itim khanom pang, which features pandan sticky rice and coconut ice cream sandwiched between a pillowy brioche-like bun, topped with toasted peanuts and deep-golden strands of crystallised egg yolk.

Time Out tip Don’t forget to look at the specials board, which recently featured an impossibly tender gaeng khua mutton curry.

This Peckham joint has been something of an incubator of Thai talent, with Andy Oliver of Som Saa/Kolae and Sebby Holmes of Farang beginning their journeys here. This is elegant, well-balanced Thai food. Start with the miang kham – fresh and aromatic betel leaf wraps of ginger, peanut, shallot, coconut, galangal and palm sugar. The must-order dish is the smoky, earthy, charcoal-grilled celeriac golae peanut curry, with a level of brooding depth you’d usually only expect to find in a Leonard Cohen song. Pad kra pao moo is a tasty concoction of lustrous stir-fried pork with holy basil, chilli and long bean, and the option to add a fried egg (you should). Deep-fried whole seabass has become a trademark of the restaurant’s alumni, so, for the curious, it’s worth tucking in to this version, which comes with physalis, kohlrabi, roasted rice and a tamarind chilli dressing. Order the palm sugar ice-cream for dessert.

Time Out tip They offer margarita cocktail specials on Tuesdays-Thursdays, with a choice of tamarind, galangal or honey spice margs for £8 a pop.

An exciting opening from the neon-loving team behind Lucky Khao in Brighton. The original spot has a broader focus on northern Thailand, but here they hone in on the barbecue culture of the night markets of Chiang Mai. The food is fun and light-hearted but serious in its density of flavour and aromatic balance. The menu is full of hits, but there are three absolutely unmissable dishes. Lung jin is a herbal meatball originating from the Shan ethnic group. Here they’re made with minced chicken, caul fat, and a cola glaze, to symphonic effect. Then there’s triple-cooked chips enveloped by hnat, a deeply warming and meat-falling-apart mutton curry, offset by fresh sour cream. Finally, lemongrass-kissed barbecued chicken, tender and charred, and served with electrifying tamarind sauce and roasted chilli jaew relish. It isn’t a bad idea to go for a curry or noodle dish either, but you ought to tie it together with at least one of the sharp and zesty seasonal salads to cut through the abundance of richness. Order the surprisingly puffy doughnut bao to finish.

Time Out tip Kernel Table Beer makes a great bedfellow, but there’s some gems on the wine list which have been selected for their capacity to handle the depth of Thai food.  

Farang’s focus is on inventive street food, and they make a big deal of sourcing the best ingredients in Thailand. They’re flown from Bangkok on commercial airlines to reduce the carbon footprint, and the fragrance of fresh lime leaves, savoury-sweetness of palm sugar, and pungency of dried shrimp boost many of their dishes. The feasting menu is a great way to experience the concept. There’s a festival of flavours in the smoked mackerel, trout roe and seasoned fruit miang bites, as well as the gai prik, crispy yet tender fried chicken thighs in a sticky fish sauce glaze, festooned with aromatic fresh herbs and dried chilli. If you’re a curry fiend go a la carte, as the feasting menu doesn’t feature any, and be sure to sample the turmeric-butter roti.

Time Out tip Peek at the specials board, which offers some really interesting dishes, such as a recently-featured cured trout with fresh raspberries, phylassis, and a green naem nueng.

When florist-turned-restaurant owner Wichet Khongphoon opened Supawan alongside his plant shop, he didn’t expect to be cooking in it every day. Originally from Trang – a fisherman’s village on the country’s western coast with Thai, Chinese and Muslim culinary traditions – he takes a hands-on approach to ensure the region’s flavours are sincerely depicted. With the neon sign inside, fluorescent colour palate, jars of infusions, and abundance of plants, you may be expecting some wildly experimental food, but what you get is home-cooked food in a quirky but surprisingly homely setting. To begin, order the excellent meiang Phuket, coconut-spiked banana flower salad, and intensely sour, gently sweet aubergine laab, which adds toasted rice powder to a family dish Khongphoon’s father came up with when one of the Thai aubergines he was growing ended up much larger than expected. There’s ample pungency and bitterness in the gang som pla and gang tai pla (the latter made with fermented fish stomach). The melt-in-your-mouth moo hong (soy-braised pork belly) and slightly-sweet coconut prawn curry, or goong pad ta-krai, are more crowd-friendly options, with the latter reminiscent of a Keralan fish curry. Order the crispy pandan pancakes for dessert.

Time Out tip Whether opting for cocktails or mocktails, the bright and fun drinks using homemade infusions are worth exploring.

The first thing to love about London’s first northern Thai spot is the faded regality of its emerald-and-golden sign. It feels like an institution before you even step through the door. It was opened in 1992 by Mr & Mrs Puntar, as the menu says on its first page, which narrates the restaurant’s history. On it are dishes you don’t see elsewhere in London, such as ferociously hot fermented crab papaya salad, sweet-and-sour son-in-law eggs, bitingly tangy and tallowy ox tripe soup, and an umami-rich, peppery gaeng om, distinct with the flavours of dried anchovy and bamboo. Out of the northern Thai dishes more prevalent in London, the sai ua is good but not spicy, and the excellent pork laab is complexly fragrant, humming with the distinctive flavours of tamarind, lime leaf, toasted rice and pig skin. Wash it all down with cheap Singha beers. 

Time Out tip If you want to go beyond the northern Thai section of the menu, opt for the prawn jungle curry. It’s rich, umami, and poised in its sweetness, with galangal and shrimp paste piquantly driving the whole thing.

Thai food in pubs is one of the UK’s most enticing phenomena. It isn’t clear who started the trend, but this family-run venture inside The Salutation is an excellent example, making this corner of Hammersmith a real destination for Thai food. Start with a pot of tom yang that oscillates between a soothing aromatic broth and intense spikes of heat and sourness. Then, the best option is to share some other plates. You can go for one of the many salads, a fiery duck laab with threads of lemongrass and lime leaf running through it; or musam chun tod numpla - a plate of deep-fried pork belly with an enticingly caramel complexion, served with a slightly smoky jaew sauce. The must-order is the kung chae numpla, oceanically fresh raw shrimps marinated in a pulsating seafood and green chilli dressing and topped with fresh herbs and garlic. Ice creams are smoothly-textured beauties; there’s a rose-coloured Thai milk flavour that’s just on the right side of not-too-sweet, and a pastel-yellow-hued durian flavour with the intense tropical funk of a Ray Barretto track. 

Time Out tip It’s one of the only places in the city to do yum puma (spicy raw crab salad), but you have to order it a week in advance.

Unusually, the restaurant operates out of a rackets club in Wimbledon. With roots in Surat Thani, Supanno Yingviriya grew up in Wimbledon, and spent some of his teens at school on Phuket. He started the business as a means of reflecting a style of southern Thai cooking that he felt was lacking in London and with his weekly-changing menu happens to offer some of the best in the city. His understanding of flavour balance is palpable in the likes of sour orange fish and new papaya curry, where the pungency is poised, the turmeric not overt enough to bring too much bitterness, and the heat and sourness vibrant without being overpowering. The most outstanding dishes are the beef massaman – with melt-in-your-mouth meat, soft potatoes, and a rich gravy – and the canary-yellow crab rice noodle curry, which is vivid with crabby flavour and fragrant with kaffir lime. The pho-esque-but-richer soup harng wua (oxtail soup) and oil-less kua gling – which uses minced beef in lieu of pork (the whole menu is halal) are also worth an order. In addition to rice, you should mop it all up with brilliantly crafted roti, which you can also order with Nutella for dessert.

Time Out tip To do the menu any sense of justice, go in a big group. Maybe you can even have a squash competition beforehand to build up an appropriate appetite.

Another family-run joint in the northern Thai hotspot of Hammersmith. There’s an impressive amount of skill and finesse shown in these dishes, matched by the hand-carved wooden sign bearing the restaurant's name on its interior wall. Go straight to the Esarn page of the menu, and order as much of it as you can. Start with some sai ua – herbal sausages specked with cubes of fat, and the perfect proportions of chilli, garlic and turmeric, alongside the northern offal-spiked, slightly saucy pork laab with the pepper and chilli heat vivid but not too loud. The gai yang ta-khrai (grilled Thai chicken) is one of the best versions in the city, with the tender meat a beautiful vessel for the softly aromatic flavours of lemongrass and turmeric. The scarlet-red kang hung lay pork curry is rich, sweet and spicy with ginger, and the beef khao soi is a double act of crispy and just-al dente egg noodle, alongside tangy pickled lettuce in a robust, piquant, coconut milk soup (khao soi curry paste is a combination of Madras curry powder and red curry).

Time Out tip They take their drinks seriously, from Thai iced tea to nom yen (pink milk).

Formally operating out of the Prince of Wales pub in Brixton as a part-Thai, part-breakfast concept, couple Mustafa and Janda decided to go full Thai when opening this small, family-style spot in West Norwood. With cooking done entirely on induction hobs, and everything made to order, it’s an impressive operation, with care and attention going into every detail. Whilst Janda is from a village near the Lao border, the fare is more focused on nationwide dishes, as well as some non-Thai dishes that appeal to their customer base – such as the expertly-made, compact veggie summer rolls. Also noteworthy is the addictively mouth-puckering laab made with rare roast beef instead of mince; the well-balanced tom yum noodle soup; and the yellow rice and lemongrass chicken with a tangy ginger dip. The real stars of the show though are the curries, such as the gently sweet, creamy chicken Thai green curry, and the warming, fragrant massaman. 

Time Out tip The hot thai tea is aromatic with lemongrass, bitter with turmeric, and sweet with pandan, and well worth an order.

Slurp is one of the only places in London to focus on meaty boat noodles, but they also make a very good hat yai chicken; crisp on the outside and soft in the middle, with a satisfying aromatic kick from white pepper. Wet rather than dry noodles are the way to go here, and from the extensive noodle soup options, the signature is the umber-hued five-spice noodle soup, which is layered with warming spices, and comes with rice noodles and a choice of pork shoulder or braised beef. Another good option is the yen ta fo or ‘pink delight noodle soup,’ with the name derived from the crimson-red fermented bean paste that drips over the broth. The non-veg version comes with plump mussels and duck blood cubes. Don’t forget to season your soups to your own taste – each table comes with sugar, fish sauce, chilli vinegar and chilli flakes, as is traditional in Bangkok’s Boat Noodle Alley. The soups all hit the spot, but the star of the show is the pork bone stew, with tender meat and a searingly sour and fearlessly hot clear broth. 

Time Out tip if you go between Wednesday-Saturday you can follow dinner with some Thai cocktails downstairs at Dangs, the recently-opened sultry cocktail bar, which is open till 1am.

Nestled within the Royal Lancaster, the only Thai-owned, independent 5-star hotel in London, Nipa offers an extremely elegant setting for a Thai meal, with fancy fabric chairs and a mahogany wood-panelled room. As well as all the classics, there are some notable lesser-seen dishes. There’s khao kriab pak moh, which are multi-coloured steamed dumplings of minced chicken and peanut surrounded by a satisfyingly elastic rice flour casing; toong ngern yuang, crispy prawn dumplings with a house chilli sauce; and phla hoy shell, one of the restaurant’s original dishes that tops perfectly-cooked scallops with an explosively zingy relish inspired by a traditional northern Thai salad. It's also worth keeping an eye out for the rotating specials, with fragrant grilled lemongrass chicken a must-order. From the more conventional parts of the menu, the sticky pork ribs are excellent, and out of the curries – which are on the sweeter, richer side of the spectrum – the pork panang curry is a standout. Desserts are creative Thai remakes of western desserts and are decent. A meal at Nipa feels like a transportative experience, and it’s unsurprisingly full most nights. 

Time Out tip Nipa recently launched a Saturday lunch sitting, offering traditional khantoke family-style sharing platters of four dishes and a choice of steamed or sticky rice for £30, which serves two.