A small internal courtyard garden at 180 The Strand has now been transformed into Outcrop, a new pop-up venture from Luca founders Johnny Smith and Daniel Willis, along with Tom Allott, Andrea Moccia and Sabrina Goreeba from Secret Cinema.
The outdoor restaurant, bar, and arts space is also the new temporary home for one of our favourite chefs, John Chantarasak, who’s behind the stoves until the end of September, cooking up his signature brand of Thai dishes made with seasonal British ingredients.
You’ll find the entrance to AngloThai at Outcrop on Surrey Street, just next to Toklas; the door leads through to an open (air) kitchen and a tented dining area filled with plants and vintage speakers – music is a big part of the experience too, with regular guest DJs throughout the summer.
We managed to pick one of those ridiculous wet August days for our visit, but it was plenty cosy under the canopy and we got stuck right in with some absolutely killer snacks – do not miss the Wildfarmed flatbread with shrimp paste butter and Brixham crab or the corn with London honey butter, lime and a dusting of spicy laab seasoning.
Next up was a crunchy summer vegetable som tam salad with tamarind and black bee honey; a monkfish crudo with a fish sauce caramel we’d happily have drank a gallon of; salt baked beetroot with a scallop roe chilli jam and sorrel; and a spicy, sour soup with langoustines and mussels – another must order.
For mains we had a superb skate wing jungle curry enriched with pork fat, with maitake mushrooms and holy basil, plus one of the best dishes of the night, a side of spelt cooked in beef fat and topped with cured ox heart. We also got a very special Cornish red chicken with palm sugar glaze soybean and elderflower jaew – having got 75% of the menu between two, we did hit our limit around this point, but we took the rest of the chicken home and it made one hell of a sandwich the next day for lunch, so don’t worry about going all-in on the ordering. There’s so much you don’t want to miss. If you do make it through for the Thai burnt cream dessert with summer berries, we can highly recommend that too.
The wine list has been been curated by AngloThai co-owner Desiree Chantarasak and features some superb low intervention wines, many of which are available by the glass or carafe. We loved the Djuce pet nat and the pink pet nat from Kent’s own Westwell vineyard. There’s a very special wine only available by bottle however which you should definitely try if you can – AngloThai’s own wine, Eleonore, a Chardonnay made in partnership with Austria’s Malinga winery. There’s only a few bottles left so you’ll need to be quick!
Under AngloThai, John is making some of the best, unique Thai food in London, so if you haven’t been able to catch one of the pop-ups or residencies before, this is the perfect chance to try it.
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1 Surrey St, London, WC2R 2ND
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