Beautiful Restaurant & Bar

Beautiful Restaurant & Bar is the iconic stilt-over-the-water seafood house at the south end of Lanta Old Town — a weathered wooden pier extending thirty metres out over the sea, with open-sided seating, red lanterns strung between posts, and a kitchen that has run the same live-tank seafood menu for twenty years.

The restaurant's charm is entirely in its geography. The Old Town waterfront on Koh Lanta's east coast is a fishing-village-on-stilts, and Beautiful sits at the best angle — the sun sets behind the restaurant and the view forward is the calm channel between Lanta and the mainland islands. The lanterns light up at dusk and the pier becomes the most photographed dinner on the island.

The food is honest Southern Thai seafood — whole steamed fish with chilli-lime sauce, grilled tiger prawns, squid with yellow curry, crab fried rice. Order from the live-tank. The bill for a family of four with one bottle of wine will come in under THB 3,000 — the value on Koh Lanta that no resort room matches.

The drive from the west coast resorts is twenty-five minutes across the mountain, and most diners time the trip for sunset. The other Old Town restaurants (Caoutchouc, Mangrove Restaurant) are within a three-minute walk, so the evening extends naturally.

Why it fits Birthday

Birthday belongs here because Beautiful Restaurant delivers the whole Koh Lanta evening — the photogenic drive over the mountain, the stilt pier at sunset, the live-tank seafood, the price that lets you order the lobster. It is the celebratory dinner that isn't a resort dinner.