The World’s 10 Best Thai Restaurants
Thai cooking is prized for its intricacy and attention to detail, texture, colour and taste. Across the cuisine, rice, sticky rice and rice noodles sit alongside chilli dips, starters, desserts and a broad use of spices, creating meals that can feel both comforting and sharply vivid. That interplay is part of the draw: fragrant herbs, citrusy brightness and chilli-led heat can all appear within a single spread, giving Thai dining its particular sense of contrast. The cuisine also shows impressive range. Some dishes lean rich and creamy, while others are fresher, sharper or more aromatic. Green curry, for example, is associated with ingredients such as shallots, coriander roots, galangal, shrimp paste, limes, garlic and green bird chillies, pointing to the layered seasoning that diners often seek out in Thai menus. Pad Thai offers a different expression, built around rice noodles and commonly associated ingredients including tofu, tamarind, peanut, lime juice, bean sprouts and dried shrimp. That variety helps explain why Thai restaurants have become widespread internationally from the 1960s onward, supported by tourism and later gastrodiplomacy. A line-up spanning Bangkok, London, San Francisco, Sydney, Richmond, St Julian’s, Singapore and New York reflects the cuisine’s global reach rather than any single style. Some diners may come for recognisable noodle dishes or curries, while others will be drawn to the cuisine’s detail, colour and balance of flavours.
Sorn
Thailand
Sorn explores the cooking of southern Thailand from a restored house on Bangkok’s Sukhumvit 26. Chef Supaksorn ‘Ice’ Jongsiri draws on his upbringing in Nakhon Si Thammarat and on research across the south’s 14 provinces, working with farmers, fishermen and home cooks to trace ingredients and techniques back to their sources. Traditional methods remain central to the kitchen. Charcoal cooking, clay pots and stone grinding give the food its foundations, while chilli pastes are worked in a mortar. Seasonal produce from small southern communities helps determine the progression of the meal. The house extends those references beyond the plate. Natural textures, woven objects and antique utensils sit alongside Thai art and pieces from the chef’s collection. The design takes inspiration from a southern forest, giving the restaurant a setting tied to the region it studies. A substantial wine cellar provides another dimension. Selections are considered against spice, acidity and smoke, helping diners follow the menu’s changing intensity from one course to the next.
Som Saa
London, UK
Som Saa is a restaurant in London, UK.
Kin Khao
San Francisco, USA
Kin Khao is a restaurant in San Francisco, USA.
Paste
Bangkok, Thailand
Paste is a restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand.
Long Chim
Sydney, Australia
Long Chim is a restaurant in Sydney, Australia.
Nahm
Thailand
Nahm gives traditional Thai cooking a contemporary expression at COMO Metropolitan Bangkok. Chef Pim Techamuanvivit builds the menu around ingredients sourced through relationships with producers across Thailand, with bold flavours and contrasting textures at the centre of the meal. Curries, salads, relishes, soups and stir-fries form the repertoire. Garlic, shrimp paste, chillies and lemongrass appear alongside ingredients less commonly seen on modern restaurant menus, creating opportunities to explore beyond familiar Thai dishes. The dining room occupies the hotel’s ground floor, with a terrace overlooking the pool and a private room for smaller gatherings. A degustation menu provides a route through the kitchen’s ideas, while seasonal changes introduce different regional influences. The Sathorn address makes Nahm a practical dinner destination within the city. Its strongest reason to visit is the food’s connection to Thai producers and culinary traditions, interpreted by a Bangkok-born chef with a personal understanding of both.
Baan Lao
Richmond, Canada
Baan Lao Fine Thai Cuisine is a Thai restaurant in Steveston, Richmond, British Columbia, at 4100 Bayview Street. The restaurant works around reserved dining experiences rather than a walk-in, all-day format, with all guests requiring a reserved seat. Its official information presents dinner service from Wednesday to Sunday, alongside a separate Thai tea service on Saturdays and Sundays, giving the restaurant a structured rhythm built around planned meals and a deliberate pace in a waterfront Richmond setting. The cooking is framed through Royal Thai Cuisine and through a menu described as a journey around the four corners of Thailand. Baan Lao says its dishes use rare and unique ingredients, while the restaurant’s own explanation of Royal Thai food emphasises balance rather than heavily hot or over-the-top spicy flavours. Presentation is also part of the identity, with the menu served on custom, hand-hewn pottery and dinnerware made by Thai artisans, reinforcing a carefully composed and culturally specific style of service. Ingredients and sourcing are central to how Baan Lao describes its kitchen. The restaurant states that it sources directly from farmers, growers and fishers, with an emphasis on tracing ingredients from sea and farm to table. It links that approach to environmental protection and sustainability, suggesting a menu shaped by provenance as much as by technique. Drinks are treated with similar care, with pairing options that include wine, cocktails, mocktails, gong fu cha tea, caffeine-free tea, sake and the Baan Lao combination. The overall experience is organised as a 2.5-hour culinary journey, and the restaurant states that there is currently no children’s menu and no à la carte option. On weekend afternoons, Baan Lao also offers an Afternoon Thai Tea Experience guided by a certified TAC tea sommelier. That service is presented as 12 dishes across three courses, paired with five teas from across Asia, adding a distinct tea-focused format to the restaurant’s reservation-based dining programme in Richmond.
Blue Elephant
St Julian’s, Malta
Blue Elephant is a Thai restaurant in St Julian’s, Malta, based at Hilton Malta in Portomaso. The operator’s Malta page identifies it as part of the Blue Elephant restaurant network, and Hilton Malta’s dining page presents it as a hotel restaurant on the property. Together, those sources establish the specific branch and setting rather than a generic independent venue, with the restaurant positioned for evening dining in one of the area’s principal seafront hotels. The restaurant is styled as a Thai village, using huts, waterfalls, vivid colours and dense greenery to create an immersive atmosphere. The official descriptions emphasise an oasis-like setting rather than a standard hotel dining room, while an established Maltese dining listing refers to private huts and a landscaped environment. This gives the branch a more theatrical character, with the décor forming a central part of the experience alongside the food. Blue Elephant’s menu focuses on Thai cuisine, with salads, soups, meat dishes and seafood featured on the Malta page. That same page includes four set menus, offering a guided choice for diners who prefer a structured meal. Hilton Malta describes the menu as combining tradition, contemporary Thai classics and more inventive dishes, indicating a mix of familiar regional dishes and a wider interpretation of Thai cooking within the St Julian’s branch. The Maltese listing also records service options such as private dining, outdoor seating, takeaway and free Wi‑Fi. It notes that the restaurant can accommodate intimate meals as well as private parties and conference dinners, which suggests a flexible layout and a function-friendly operation inside the hotel. Overall, Blue Elephant in St Julian’s is presented as a polished Thai restaurant where atmosphere, reserved spaces and a composed evening format are as important as the menu itself.
Nara Thai Cuisine
Singapore
Nara Thai Cuisine is a restaurant in Singapore.
Khao
New York, USA
Khao is a restaurant in New York, USA.