I had not been out for fine dining since a recent fantastic meal at Mezzogiorno, so when we arranged for a midweek dinner at Anglothai with two of my closest girlfriends, it surely felt like a special occasion!

We had just watched John Chantarasak on Master Chef Professionals and Great British Menu and thus decided to check out his London restaurant, Anglothai, which he opened with his wife around 18m ago. I had been familiar with John’s work for a few years (since before he launched Somsaa in the City) and I was super keen to try his current place, as his cuisine is modern, with Thai aromas and flavours but using British ingredients. John is of Thai and Welsh heritage so his food fully reflects this, and in an exceptionally successful way, in our opinion.

The venue is really welcoming, with warm tones on the furniture and the decor (I loved the egg shapes on the ceiling); the kitchen at the back is visible (and busy) and the acoustic is spot on – you can actually have a conversation! Downstairs is a separate kitchen, restrooms and private dining area.

Tasting menu

They offer a multiple course tasting menu which includes a round of snacks and a palate cleanser plus an extra (optional) course, which we did not order as we felt there was enough food (there was).

From the small and delicious opening broth (tom ka inspired), to the final sweet course, it was one dish after the other of incredible flavours and aromatics.

Amongst the starters, we all especially loved Mee rob noodles, mussel and makrut lime (above photo): you could taste the sea in the mussel, as it was surrounded by the fresh, herby, tart lime.

Brixham crab, Exmoor caviar and coconut ash cracker followed, a nod to his GBM participation; I had the vegetarian option which was just as good, albeit less visually stunning than the black coconut cracker served with the crab.

The Sunflower seed penang with potato bread and white asparagus introduced the intense, rich, spicy part of the meal. We all loved it, the bread providing some texture to the deep curry.

The course that followed – Chalk stream trout, sour curry and Napa cabbage – continued the theme of intense, umami rich flavour, this was a clear and wonderful complement to the just cooked trout. Looked simple but delivered on flavours!

The main brought the explosion of textures that had popped up in each dish, all in one go: perfectly cooked duck breast and peppercorn curry, accompanied by a rich, wok fried khan mok grains, fried shallots and biriyani masala, and a refreshing, crunchy green apple and rhubarb salad with confit duck leg that provided respite from the heat of the other components.

Desserts

We then moved onto the sweet part of the meal, with a palate cleanser that had British strawberries, crunchy yellow beets and panda tapioca pearls, which I loved because I love pandan, it was the perfect connection between savoury and sweet.

An almond & ginger mini cake with todoli citrus closed the meal, it was moist, not too sweet and with the right level of acidity thanks to the citrus. By this point, it was hard to pick a favourite dish, they had all been so absolutely wonderful. Maybe the trout? Or was it the duck.. or perhaps the curry… impossible to choose!

While we enjoyed a mini blood orange kanom lek (a hard jelly like morsel), chef John came to say hello (we couldn’t avoid a bit of fangirling) and he was so friendly, it really made our evening even more perfect.

In conclusion

With a shared bottle of crisp Spanish rose, the bill came to 160£ each inc. service, which, for a Michelin starred, central London restaurant, is excellent value. We couldn’t recommend Anglothai more.