(Bloomberg) -- It’s been almost a quarter century since Nahm landed in London and helped change the city’s culinary landscape. The now-shuttered, Michelin-starred Thai restaurant from Australian-born David Thompson opened in 2001 and brought an immense amount of attention to the cuisine, finally giving the capital’s diners a high-end alternative to pad thai and red-yellow-green traffic-light curries. In recent years, Sirichai Kularbwong’s sleeper-hit Singburi and “nu-Thai” spots, launched by Nahm alumni like Andy Oliver (Som Saa) and Luke Farrell (Speedboat Bar), have raised the bar in London even higher.
Now John Chantarasak, another Thompson alum, and his wife, Desiree, have opened their first brick-and-mortar restaurant, AngloThai. The name not only references Chantarasak’s parentage but also his compelling culinary approach, combining Thai flavors and a meticulous focus on seasonal British produce with Cordon Bleu-trained finesse.
The restaurant, in a quiet street on the edge of Marylebone in London’s West End, has been six years in the making, the culmination of a series of residencies across the city. The menu reflects a loose collection of greatest-hit dishes that Chantarasak perfected in those locales and is perhaps key to why AngloThai has hit the ground running.
The menu is split between an ever-evolving five-course chef’s selection (£75, or $95) tasting menu, with the option of vegan and vegetarian lists, and an à la carte list with small plates ranging from £16 to £20 and entrées that hover between £30 and £43.
The chef’s selection starts with a smorgasbord of snacks and a Carlingford oyster that reflects the current vogue for lavishing attention on a single bivalve. In this case, it’s anointed with fermented chile and citrusy sea buckthorn. Next, Brixham crab is spooned onto the signature, but somewhat unwieldy cracker made with coconut ash and topped with Exmoor caviar. Another dish, umami-rich short rib brioche pastry dotted with makrut lime and smoked butter sriracha, makes for a sweet, salty, spicy and deeply savoury bun that reflects the myriad tastes great Thai cooking can deliver in a single bite.
The main course, Massaman curry and black fig, with hogget supplied by Desiree’s family farm, is broodingly brilliant, flickering with chile heat and gamey richness from the lamb, an exemplary version of the Thai classic. It’s accompanied by nutty pearled oats, akin to short-grain brown rice, and a stand-out version of the fried aubergine dish pad makua yao, which comes draped in sweet basil and emulsified with a sunset-hued, soy-cured egg yolk. The menu closes out with a dense honey cake with ribbons of tangy, chewy Crown Prince pumpkin and soothing pumpkin seed ice cream.
Indeed, this is not crash-bang Thai food. You will not be mopping your brow as you might at Speedboat or Som Saa. Chantarasak and head chef Xander Lloyd have a more tempered take, so the flavors roll across the palate and aren’t battling intense chile heat.
Desiree’s wine list reflects the wide range of flavors and focuses on growers and importers with a natural or biodynamic bent. Wines from cooler climates like Austria, Germany and Hungary—ones with the requisite minerality to partner with the striking Thai flavors—are highlighted. One of them is Austrian grower Niburu whose skin-contact “white” tastes of distilled alpine summers and plays well with the lighter elements of the menu. The light-bodied red, christened “Rufus” after the Chantarasak’s son, holds its own against the intensity of the Massaman. The cocktail list is also seasonally minded, with options like a noteworthy margarita with tart zing from the late-season sea buckthorn berries.
Like the restaurant’s compound nomenclature, the design of the 50-seat place is an amalgam. The walls spotlight modern Thai artists with abstract paintings and woven metal installations, while the dark-hued wood top tables, pendant lighting and Welsh ceramics evoke a midcentury feel.
The place has a grown-up convivial hum and feels genuinely refreshing—a relaxed, thoughtful, family-run restaurant operating at a level many pricier fine-dining spots don’t achieve. What it doesn’t have is the self-importance that you might find at those restaurants and at some of the natural wine establishments that are currently crowding London. The promise of this hard-earned moment is not going unnoticed: On the first night, an Apple TV crew was taking up space in the kitchen.
On that first night, by sheer coincidence, another long-awaited Thai restaurant was opening in Soho: a London iteration of David Thompson’s hawker-style spot, Long Chim. But now, it seems, the cameras are trained on AngloThai.
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