Three months after John and Desiree Chantarasak opened the door at 22 Seymour Place, Michelin handed AngloThai a star, the first ever given to a London Thai restaurant. The February 2025 decision confirmed what the city's cooks had known for a decade: London does Thai food at a level no other Western capital can match, and most of it happens at counters, not tasting menus. Eight rooms, ranked.
How London learned to cook Thai
Two lineages built this scene. David Thompson's Nahm trained the technicians, Andy Oliver of Som Saa and John Chantarasak of AngloThai among them, in Bangkok rather than London. Ben Chapman built the other school around live fire and British rare-breed meat at Kiln and Smoking Goat, and Luke Farrell closed the ingredient gap by growing Thai cultivars at his Ryewater nursery in Dorset and shipping them to his own kitchens. The result is a city where the argument is no longer whether the food is authentic but which version of Thailand you want tonight. The London dining guide maps the whole field; the Thai cuisine guide sets the standards used below.
The eight, ranked
1. AngloThai — Marylebone
John Chantarasak cooks British ingredients through Thai technique at 22 Seymour Place: a 44-cover room, an open kitchen, a set menu at 125 pounds in the evening and 65 at lunch, and a wine list run by his wife and co-owner Desiree that takes the food seriously. Opened 11 November 2024, starred 10 February 2025, the fastest such award London has seen in years. Book it to settle the question of how far this cuisine can go. Not for anyone wanting green curry and jasmine rice; the menu refuses the canon.
2. Kiln — Soho
Ben Chapman's grill room at 58 Brewer Street, with Meedu Saad running the line, burns wood under clay pots and skewers and feeds you for about 35 pounds. The baked glass noodles with Tamworth belly and brown crab have not left the menu since opening, because nothing has beaten them. A Bib Gourmand, and the UK's best restaurant at the 2018 National Restaurant Awards. Kiln's full review covers the counter strategy: walk in, eat early, watch the fire. Groups beyond four should look elsewhere; the room is a corridor.
3. Singburi — Shoreditch
Sirichai Kularbwong ran London's most loved Thai dining room out of a Leytonstone shopfront for years; in 2025 he moved it to a 19-seat counter around an open, live-fire kitchen in Shoreditch. The moo krob, crisp pork belly that built the cult, made the journey. Time Out called the new room the second coming of London's most important Thai restaurant, and the booking demand answers accordingly. Go solo or as a pair and sit where the smoke is. Not for large parties or anyone who wants distance from the kitchen.
4. Som Saa — Spitalfields
Andy Oliver's room at 43a Commercial Street started as a pop-up, crowdfunded its permanent home in 2016, survived a kitchen fire that closed it for months, and reopened with the nahm dtok pla thort, a whole deep-fried sea bass under Isaan herbs, still the single dish every first-timer must order. Plates around 18 pounds, dinner about 45 a head. Som Saa's full review ranks the menu. The room runs loud and communal; book it for a group that eats fearlessly, not a quiet date.
5. Kolae — Borough Market
The Som Saa team, Oliver with Mark Dobbie, opened this southern Thai grill at 6 Park Street in November 2023 and named it for the dish: gai kolae, chicken basted in turmeric and coconut cream over coconut-husk charcoal. The market setting earns its keep, with produce walking metres from stall to grill. Dinner runs about 50 pounds a head with the wines by the glass. The best of the newer openings and the easiest serious booking on this list outside peak Saturday.
6. Speedboat Bar — Chinatown
Luke Farrell's collaboration with JKS Restaurants on Rupert Street cooks Thai-Chinese, the food of Bangkok's Chinatown: wok dishes with real breath, offal handled without apology, herbs flown in or grown at Farrell's Dorset nursery. There is a pool table upstairs and a Singha in everyone's hand, and the bill stays around 30 pounds a head. Book it for the second date, the one where you both order properly. Skip it for a quiet conversation; the room wins.
7. Smoking Goat — Shoreditch
Chapman's other room, at 64 Shoreditch High Street, runs as a Bangkok-style drinking canteen: fish-sauce chicken wings with cult status, a Tamworth pork chop with jaew dipping sauce, plates around 12 pounds, no reservations for small groups, and a din that belongs to the food. Smoking Goat's full review covers timing; before 6.30pm the wait is minutes. The after-work answer on this list. Not for anyone who measures Thai food by its curries.
8. Plaza Khao Gaeng — New Oxford Street and Borough Yards
Farrell's curry-over-rice canteen inside Arcade Food Hall serves the southern Thai food that almost never leaves Thailand: turmeric sour curries at full, unsoftened heat, about 25 pounds a head. Demand justified a second, larger room at Borough Yards in November 2025. The format is the point, trays and pace and no ceremony, which makes it the city's best Thai lunch rather than its best Thai evening. Not for lingering; the room is built for forty-minute meals.
What to skip
Skip the high-street chains for any meal that matters; they exist for delivery, and at these prices the real rooms are within reach. Skip hotel-restaurant pad thai entirely. And update your map: Singburi's Leytonstone shopfront is closed, so any list still routing you to E11 is out of date, and Som Saa's fire closure ended long ago. London Thai moves fast enough that a 2023 list is already wrong.
Booking mechanics
AngloThai is the only hard ticket here: 44 seats, releases roughly a month out, weekends gone within days, midweek lunch the realistic entry. Singburi's 19 counter seats sell out next-fastest. Kiln and Smoking Goat hold counters for walk-ins and book only their back tables, so arrive before 6.30pm and you eat. Som Saa and Kolae run standard platform bookings a week or two out. For tactics on the long-lead rooms, the advance-booking guide applies; for pairing the room to the night, the first-date guide covers which counters help and which hurt.
Keep reading
The standards behind this ranking live in the Thai cuisine guide. For the city's other benches, the London Chinese ranking and the London Indian ranking run the same rules over deeper history.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Thai restaurant in London?
For the full statement, AngloThai: John Chantarasak's Marylebone dining room won a Michelin star in February 2025, three months after opening, the first ever for a London Thai restaurant. For the food alone at a third of the price, Kiln on Brewer Street and Singburi's new Shoreditch counter are the two rooms the city's chefs argue about.
Which London Thai restaurants have Michelin recognition?
AngloThai holds the star, awarded in February 2025. Kiln carries a Bib Gourmand and was named the UK's best restaurant at the 2018 National Restaurant Awards. Som Saa and Smoking Goat appear in the guide's selections. No other Western capital has a Thai bench this deep, which is why the star finally landing here surprised nobody in the kitchens.
How much does Thai food cost at London's best restaurants?
The spread is unusually wide. AngloThai's set dinner is 125 pounds a head before wine, with lunch at 65. The grill rooms are far kinder: Kiln feeds you properly for about 35 pounds, Smoking Goat's plates hover around 12, and Plaza Khao Gaeng's curry-over-rice runs about 25 a head. Spend by occasion, not by reflex.
Do London's top Thai restaurants take walk-ins?
The counters do. Kiln holds most of its Brewer Street counter for walk-ins and books only the back tables. Speedboat Bar and Smoking Goat both seat walk-ins outside Friday and Saturday peak, and Plaza Khao Gaeng's food-hall format needs no booking at all. AngloThai does not; its 44 covers sell out weeks ahead, weekends first.
Is Som Saa still open?
Yes. The Spitalfields room reopened after a kitchen fire forced a long closure, and the cooking that made its name, whole deep-fried sea bass with Isaan herbs above all, came back intact. Old lists and old maps also still place Singburi in Leytonstone; that shopfront is gone, and the restaurant now cooks in Shoreditch.
Prices, chefs, awards and opening status were checked against the restaurants' published menus, booking platforms and the current Michelin and local guide editions; all of it changes without notice, so confirm on the booking page before you commit. Restaurants for Kings is editorial, not sponsored. Some reservation links may earn an affiliate commission, which never affects a ranking or a score.