It’s only a short stroll from Quintessentially’s head office in Fitzrovia to AngloThai’s front door in Marylebone. But the symbolic journey to get here has been long and, in places, arduous.
‘It’s been four years since my wife [Desiree] and I decided we wanted to open a restaurant,’ says co-founder and chef John Chantarasak as we sit in the brand-new AngloThai on Seymour Street a few days before it opens. ‘I think we were a little naïve in thinking it’d be easy.’
John and Desiree first cooked as AngloThai in 2015, hosting a series of pop-ups in their home that became wildly popular amongst London’s foodies. A string of residencies soon followed, along with John’s first cookbook (Kin Thai), a place on the National Restaurant Awards ‘Chef to Watch’ shortlist, the backing of restaurant giants MJMK, and persistent whispers that AngloThai would soon have a home.
Desiree and John Chantarasak
And following a few frustrating setbacks, it’s here. On 11th November, John and Desiree will open the first bricks-and-mortar AngloThai in the Hyde Park end of Marylebone – and Quintessentially’s Head of Restaurants, Keith Doyle, and I had a sneak peek before it opened.
It’s a small, stylish dining room decked out with 48 polished Chamchuri wood tables (imported from a furniture maker in Chiang Mai) and a selection of pieces by Thai artisans – from a painting by a reiki healer to a light fixture constructed using techniques only found in one village in northern Thailand. It’s so new you can still smell the fresh paint – until the open kitchen kicks into life and the aroma of chilli and basil floats into my nostrils.
If you’ve never tried AngloThai’s food, don’t think along the lines of your local Thai restaurant. AngloThai is a personal project in which John – himself half-Thai – has created his own versions of Thai dishes he loves using seasonal British produce. That means no peanuts for satay sauce; no rice, sticky or otherwise; and no limes (although there is lemongrass and coconut – the only two ingredients John imports).
Brixmoor crab, Exmoor caviar, and coconut ash cracker (L) | Winter radish cake, vegetable treacle, and tarragon (R)
But this isn’t a restaurant about what is missing. It is a celebration of what is right here in the UK.
‘I realised the British Isles are amazing,’ says John. ‘I love the shellfish in the UK; I find it the most exciting. And we have plentiful pastures for animal rearing and growth. So, it became a natural thing to start questioning where I could find synonymous Thai flavours in the UK.’
He began experimenting. The four pillars of Thai cooking are usually only found in Thailand: salt from fish sauce, sweet from palm sugar, sour from lime juice and tamarind, and spice from chillies. He swapped limes for domestic fruits and berries like sea buckthorn (try it in AngloThai’s sea buckthorn margarita – a much more savoury take on the classic marg). Palm sugar was exchanged for a particularly intense honey he found near Glastonbury where the bees fed on ivy pollen, resulting in a much stronger flavour.
He made his own fish sauce by preserving and fermenting all the kitchen’s fish scraps and bones, and chillies can be grown seasonally in the UK – although John is quick to point out that the curries we’re used to thinking about as year-round are actually seasonal.
This Noma-esque local approach to international cuisine is something we’re starting to see more of in London. Places like Fonda in Mayfair and Paradise in Soho are also adapting the traditional tenets of the cuisines they serve in order to make full use of British ingredients. The results are wondrous.
Blythburg chop, pork fat, and smoked chilli relish
‘London is a melting pot of heritages, and [AngloThai] feels like a welcome mongrel state where anything can go if we do it respectfully and stick to our identity of making delicious food,’ says John.
And delicious it is. I’ve eaten John’s take on Thai cuisine before, most recently at Outcrop – the high-profile residency at 180 The Strand that combined food, music, and art – where he served chilli-bathed oysters that, I’m pleased to see, are back on the menu alongside a suite of ephemeral new arrivals.
We bite into cuttlefish buns, a doughier, seedier version of its prawn toast cousins, coated in a fragrant layer of heritage seeds. Radish cakes are next, sticky and sweet, with an aromatic hit by way of tarragon instead of Thai basil. Then, it’s over to ribbons of chalk stream trout swimming in a coriander-heavy green chilli sauce and venison tartare piled with rosy radicchio petals that, when scooped and swallowed, kick back a lick of chilli jam.
It's all very light and subtle, the flavours and textures doing a delicate dance that almost feels healthy. Even dessert is feather light, a pumpkin cake and custard combo that’s inspired by a traditional Thai street snack.
Cuttlefish bun, heritage seeds, and black garlic
‘We want our food to be nourishing for your body and soul,’ says John. ‘But I also want people to feel like they’re getting some sort of original experience. I like to feel and hope that a lot of people haven’t tried food of this nature [before].’
It’s certainly unique, but it’s unique in that homey, friendly way where you feel you could sit in the restaurant all day, chatting to John about music and his kids whilst devouring bite after bite of his outstanding cooking. And that’s exactly what John wants AngloThai to be
‘This is meant to feel like a well-loved home – an extension of our house in Battersea transported here,’ he says .’We want people to rock up, relax, eat some good food, maybe get a bit p****d, listen to music, and just have a good time.’
So, after years of pop-ups and residencies, setbacks and soul-searching, AngloThai has finally found its home.
