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Bloomberg

Thai food around the world is undergoing its biggest changes in decades, especially in the US.
There are still plenty of curries and noodles to go around, but a new generation of restaurants and cafes is looking beyond the classics to put unique twists on everything from chicken tenders and banana pudding to barbecue, cheesesteaks and cheesecake.
“I don’t know what happened in the last year, but there was some sort of crazy explosion,” says Ann Redding, sitting with her husband and fellow chef Matt Danzer in a back booth of Thai Diner, their celebrated downtown New York restaurant.
Situated on the edge of Manhattan’s Chinatown, Thai Diner opened during the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers Thai food that can be authentic without being traditional: think massaman curry Thai disco fries, breakfast sandwiches verdant with Thai basil and fortified with sai oua herbal sausage, and a cheesesteak made with chilli and basil phat bai horapha-style rib-eye steak.
A year ago, Redding and Danzer opened their takeaway spot Mommy Pai’s, barely a block away, which specialises in fried and grilled chicken tenders. The tenders, great as they are, are best thought of as vehicles for the restaurant’s assortment of Thai-inspired sauces – eight in total.

The Noom Spicy Green Sauce, a play on Northern Thai nam prik num, is tart and herbal, while pickled green peppercorn and gingery galangal brighten the Thousand Island-adjacent Phuket Island Sauce. On the side, go for coconut rice and beans, grilled in a banana leaf and som tum slaw.
One reason that places like Mommy Pai’s work is that diners across the US have achieved a fluency in Thai cuisine, giving chefs the freedom to riff and incorporate other influences without causing confusion.
Getting to this point took decades and a plan by the Thai government, though chicken tenders and banana pudding were almost certainly not the end goal.
Its roots, to the current third wave
It is widely believed that the first wave of Thai restaurants in the US began with Chada Thai, which opened in Denver in the early 1960s. These early ventures did not have access to real Thai ingredients, subbing in Chinese ingredients, or even spaghetti or linguine for noodle dishes.
The number of Thai restaurants in New York and around the world grew rapidly over the next 40 years.
That is thanks in large part to the Global Thai programme, a government initiative that aimed to broaden the country’s culinary footprint worldwide while building export demand for domestic food and agriculture.
Aspiring restaurateurs received support in the form of business plans and marketing expertise, with the proviso that they follow a set of guidelines, which included sourcing key ingredients from Thailand and featuring dishes like pad Thai.
Eventually, a second wave of restaurants focused on greater authenticity and regional specialities. Around 2013, with the opening of restaurants like Somtum Der, a Bangkok-based Isan restaurant chain, and Zabb Elee – which earned a Michelin star but later closed – New Yorkers learned to love pungent Northern Thai dishes.
Now Thai food has reached its third wave. Restaurants like Anajak Thai in Los Angeles made waves during the pandemic with Thai Taco Tuesday, a tradition that has stuck around.
Fries as a vehicle for regional flavours spread beyond Thai Diner to Khao Bird in London – in the form of its mutton curry fries – and the year-old Thai Tavern in Toronto, which offers triple-fried chips tossed in spicy tom yum seasoning and topped with curry and cheese curds in a Khao Soi Poutine.

At Chet’s in the Hoxton Hotel in London’s Shepherd’s Bush neighbourhood, Los Angeles chef Kris Yenbamroong’s “Thai-Americana” restaurant offers both loaded tater tots and Thai(ish) takes on brunch staples like avocado toast and chicken and waffles.
This May, the owners of San Francisco’s Khao Tiew will open the brunch-centric spot Tur in the West Portal neighbourhood.
Though the menu is still in the planning stages, diners can expect dishes like mango sticky rice French toast and Duck Duck, a croissant bread pudding with duck leg confit.
Experimenting with flavours
The Thai diaspora spread elsewhere, picking up influences along the way. At the Long Island City branch of New York’s Soothr, the menu and decor are inspired by Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown.
These days at BKK, in New York’s Midtown Manhattan neighbourhood, sai oua sausage is offered hot-dog-style, part of the restaurant’s conceit of serving Thai food with pervasive New York references. Jeanine Royce, who owns BKK with her wife, chef Kate Royce, credits the second wave of Thai restaurants for opening the door to more experimentation.
“Because of that, we were able to think a bit more outside of the box in terms of what we want to do,” Royce says.
Along with the “hot dog”, BKK offers dishes like spring rolls coated in everything bagel seasoning and a brisket French dip, served with spicy beef jus.
New York also holds sway over the menu at LenLen, a cocktail-forward restaurant opened in August near Union Square by Wanisa Torboonsitikorn and chef Peter Ki Suk Tondreau, a couple, with partner Tim Stuyts.
Produce from the Union Square greenmarket features prominently there, and sometimes unexpectedly, in dishes like crab durian curry with local spaghetti squash, which echoes the texture of the crustacean.

Meanwhile, at Chim Chim NYC, which opened in January, the emphasis is on desserts, such as an already Instagram-famous cheesecake that is layered with purple taro, golden salted egg and a tuft of savoury pork floss.
The project began about two years ago as an act of desperation for Natthaya Wongsamphan, who found that egg in cakes was the only protein her daughter would willingly consume.
She began posting her pastry experiments to Instagram and sharing them with neighbours and friends in the restaurant industry.
Now, Chim Chim NYC has queues out the door for coconut butterfly pea jelly pie, Thai tea layer cakes and a not remotely Thai, but incredibly good, carrot cake.

Then there is Nuar, a sliver of a shop in New York’s NoMad neighbourhood specialising in Thai tea and sweets.
The tea is a long way from the traditional cloying bright orange stuff, which is all too often a blend of sugar, non-dairy creamer and artificial colouring. Nuar’s is made from a proprietary tea blend that gets steeped in milk – cow or oat.
Nuar’s creative team say they are offering something that is captivating New York diners: a sense of fun.
“I think Thai food can do that as well,” says co-owner Pepe Chiaracharuwat.


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Food and Drinks

There’s a Thai food revolution going on as chefs think outside the box

Fried chicken with mommy cakes and sticky rice lettuce wraps at Mommy Pai’s, one of the many restaurants in the US that are looking beyond the classics to put unique twists on Thai dishes.

The Mommy Pai’s takeaway spot in New York specialises in fried and grilled chicken tenders. Photo: Instagram/mommypais

Anajack Thai in Los Angeles, California, is one of the pioneers of Thai Taco Tuesday. Photo: courtesy of Carter Hiyama

The crab durian curry at LenLen. Photo: Courtesy of LenLen

Coconut butterfly pea jelly pie at Chim Chim NYC. Photo: Courtesy of Chim Chim NYC

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The outside of King Tacos in Kin, Okinawa. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

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Khao chae at Pribpri restaurant at the Devasom Hua Hin Resort in Thailand. A Thai palace cuisine dish, it includes cool, perfumed rice with iced, jasmine-scented water and side dishes such as shrimp paste balls, sweet fried fish, stuffed green peppers wrapped in egg, pork floss and stir-fried preserved radish in coconut milk. Photo: Devasom Hua Hin

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Ath Atirak Co-founder of Devasom Resorts. Photo: handout

Angus neua samrit at Pribpri. Photo: Devasom

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Why has New York gone crazy for savoury pastries, from empanadas to char siu baos?

The Curry Goat Patty. Photo: Instagram/ popspatties

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A tray of freshly baked burekas. Photo: Getty Images

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

A new generation of restaurants in the US and beyond is looking past the classics to put unique twists on all kinds of Thai dishes


A new generation of restaurants in the US and beyond is looking past the classics to put unique twists on all kinds of Thai dishes.


Asian diaspora

Asian-Americans

There’s a Thai food revolution going on as chefs think outside the box

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A new generation of restaurants in the US and beyond is looking past the classics to put unique twists on all kinds of Thai dishes

A new generation of restaurants in the US and beyond is looking past the classics to put unique twists on all kinds of Thai dishes