London’s best Thai restaurants

London’s most-loved Thai restaurant has relocated to Shoreditch. For anyone who managed to score a booking at the Leytonstone original, the move is surreal. The new location sits under a railway arch and is a fresh, pared-back space with a stainless steel bar. Singburi 2.0 will be navigating a balancing act of nostalgia and renewal for a while. Some cult dishes haven’t made the jump. There’s no moo krob, salted fish rice, or stir-fried clams yet. But those that have been revamped feel even more accomplished; the fiery yet refreshing watermelon salad now stars peak-season strawberries. Lamb short rib is a revelation, as it their take on nam tok, where wobbly smoked pork belly is offset by nutty roasted rice powder.

Time Out tip: There’s still no dessert, but there is a wine list full of funky naturals, and cocktail menu. Try the lemongrass-infused paloma.

The much-awaited, Michelin star-scoring 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.

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.

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.

Situated in a railway arch in Peckham, Kruk offers a veggie-friendly take on Thai, with every dish having a vegetarian counterpart. A valiant cause, but we’re faithful to fish and meat on our visit, starting with a flawless round of oysters dressed with green nam jim and teeny tiny kalamansi lime, then betel leaves wrapped around poached prawns and chunks of pink pomello, tossed with crunchy toasted peanut and salted caramel fish sauce. There are also fried venison wontons and a salad of tea-smoked bavette slices, chicken thigh skewers and a creamy duck phaenang curry. This is serious cooking, and like most dishes we try, nothing is too spicy. These are friendly but intoxicating flavours, that won’t blow your head off but may leave it at a slight angle. 

Time Out tip: Pudding is a must. Go for the strangely soupy black sticky rice pudding with mango, which gives an Ambrosia-by-way-of-Chiang-Mai end to the meal.

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.

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.

Khao-So-i is the brainchild of Win Srinavakool, a self-taught Chiang Mai chef who ditched his career as a travel agent to reinvent the khao soi shop – casual eateries serving Northern Thai coconut curry noodles. Four Bangkok locations followed, but this London outpost is his most ambitious move yet. Grilled Norfolk pork moo ping is tender and caramelised to an exacting, gentle sweetness; pla som – butterflied sea bream, cured before cooking, comes with a silken, subtly smoky flesh and an inexplicably complex flavour. The main affair is the Khao-So-I, which arrives on a branded wooden board, looking like an upmarket bento box. You can order it with delicate slices of scallop or a colossal tiger prawn covered in royal amounts of salmon roe. Pickled mustard seeds and a squeeze of lime add bitterness and acidity, and you can order a kai dong nam pla (marinated egg yolk in fish sauce) for even filthier levels of richness. 

Time Out tip The must-order dessert is cha Thai cheesecake, a dish invented for the London menu. It’s luxuriously oozy and roaring with umami, underlain by a transportative tannic hint.

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.

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. There is also a second (bigger) branch by Borough Market and London Bridge. 

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).

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.

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 As of summer 2025 there’s a second Speedboat Bar on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, thus doubling your chances of scoring a table at one of the hottest restaurants in town. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As unlikely venues go for lip-smacking Thai food that transports you straight to the streets of Bangkok, this pub-and-dining-room in a Paddington back-street has to top the list. The street-level boozer is so full of bric-a-brac and royal memorabilia that it’s like an antique shop run by a die-hard monarchist. But in its basement lies a bright yellow restaurant serving flavour-packed Thai cuisine so unadulterated for Western tastes that calling it spicy doesn’t really do it justice (try ‘made us feel as though our mouths have spontaneously combusted’).

Time Out tip: It’s worth saying that compared to the cosy pub, the bright lighting of the basement dining room can feel sterile, so you may prefer to opt for a table in the bar (reservations are placed downstairs unless specified).