Many years and pop-ups in the making, John and Desiree Chantarasak have finally opened a fully fledged permanent restaurant for their AngloThai concept
It’s been a long road to get here, and having been to nearly every pop-up and residency AngloThai have done in London in the last few years, we feel as though we’ve very much been along for the ride. It’s brilliant to see them open up their new digs on Seymour Street (in what was Brad McDonald’s Lockhart a good 10 years ago) and we were straight down there in opening week to check it out.
Eat This
If you haven’t tried AngloThai before, the main thing to know is that John is half-Thai, half-British and this dual influence is at the heart of his cooking. Thai dishes are reimagined with British ingredients, blending bold flavours and traditional cooking styles with contemporary presentation to create something that’s totally unique.
There’s an a la carte and chef’s selection menu for £75, which is a good place to start if it’s your first introduction to AngloThai. We went a la carte, kicking off with Carlingford oysters dressed in sea buckthorn and spicy fermented chilli.
Next up is a bit of an AngloThai signature, a pot of dressed Brixham crab topped with Exmoor caviar, and served with coconut ash crackers. Whole crabs are grilled over charcoal; the white meat dressed in coconut cream and makrut lime, and the brown crab is made into a rich emulsion that fills traditional flower-shaped Thai crackers stained with coconut ash to turn them a dramatic deep black. It’s a beautiful dish and definitely a must order.
You should get both the flat breads: one topped with shrimp butter and Cornish shellfish, the other with roasted yeast butter and red kale.
We can also recommend the lion’s mane mushroom and sunflower seed satay, which swaps the traditional peanut sauce for roasted sunflower seeds; the Ryall Farm hogget massaman curry, using black-faced Hebridean sheep from Ryall Farm in Dorset, owned and farmed by Desiree’s family; and the line-caught hake with sour orange curry and watercress.
Don’t miss the sides, including the wholegrain farro, where the grains are fried in aged beef fat, braised in beef stock and seaweed, and then finished with a grating of cured and coconut-smoked beef heart.
Desserts, not usually a strong suit of Thai restaurants, are brilliant too – we loved the cacao ganache with sugarcane rum and salted coconut, and the crown prince squash, fig leaf and pumpkin seed ice cream.
Drink This
Desiree is in charge of the wine list, which has again been years in the making, and based on personal relationships with growers, winemakers and importers that have been a part of AngloThai’s journey so far. It’s stacked full of interesting, tasty wines, from Stajerska KollekIv in Slovenia to cult winemakers such as Charlie Herring from Hampshire. We particularly like the house wines that have been made in partnership with Nibiru Wines, in Austria’s Kamptal region, and named Rufus and Aubretia after John and Diz’s two children.
Why Go
There’s plenty of great Thai food in London, but there’s nothing quite like AngloThai. A must visit.
Key Information
Address | 22-24 Seymour Place, London W1H 7NL
For more information | anglothai.co.uk