In deep-south rural Thailand, near the border with Malaysia, skewers of meat laced on bamboo sticks are lined up on grills at roadside diners. “You sit down and you go, ‘Oh, that smells amazing,’” Luke Farrell, chef and founder of London Thai restaurants Plaza Khao Gaeng and Speedboat Bar, tells Broadsheet. Making these skewers is an all-day process, as they’re constantly re-dipped in a coconut cream and curry paste mixture, “gently turning, gently caramelising”. These skewer spots typically sit next to khao gaeng – stalls that serve curry over rice that have given three southern-Thai restaurants by Farrell their names. The latest Plaza Khao Gaeng opened yesterday, May 5, in Covent Garden. And it’s where Farrell is going deeper into southern Thai food than ever before.
“I love southern Thai food, and I want to have it here exactly as it is in Thailand here,” Farrell says. “I don’t want things dumbed down.”
The first Plaza Khao Gaeng opened in Tottenham Court Road’s Arcade food hall in 2021 and “was like southern Thai food for a Bangkok taste – slightly less spicy”. The second, in Borough, was southern Thai with a braised pork dish “that we found at a railway station in [the southern Thailand province of] Phatthalung. [Covent Garden] is the deepest south we’ve gone.”
In southern Thailand, skewers are typically eaten before diners tuck into curry and rice. Sticks of chicken slathered in red curry sauce and turmeric, marinated lamb with black pepper and cumin, and cuttlefish skewers arrive warm from a grill that dominates one end of the restaurant. Do like the southern Thais do and pull off chunks of meat using roti jala, a lacy net-like roti.
The theatre of the grill is key to the Plaza Khao Gaeng experience. “One of the things I was most worried about was the grill,” Farrell, who lives in Thailand, says. “Would it look like a southern Thai roadside grill?” Helping set the scene are 10-inch bamboo sticks imported from Thailand which are split in half; the meat is sandwiched in between.
It’s this commitment to the concept that flows through each Plaza Khao Gaeng. Much of the decor – from the rolls of tablecloth to the “cutlery that’s like tinfoil that can bend” is from Thailand. Like in Thailand, cutlery is housed in metal boxes on each table and fans spin from the ceiling.
Other dishes resulting from Farrell’s southern travels include hor mok pla yang – banana leaf wrapping sea bream custard with red curry that’s cooked on the grill over coals – and ponlamai raum pla wan, which are pickled fruits that are “sour and refreshing and sweet”, and housed in enormous glass pots on a cart. They’re designed for munching on alongside the skewers, before jumping into other dishes like Plaza Khao Gaeng’s beloved massaman curry, made with a paste from a third-generation curry paste maker in Bangkok, and the green curry. Many ingredients are grown at Ryewater, Farrell’s Dorset nursery with multiple tropical greenhouses.
Bright and fresh drinks, including a vivid pink snake fruit soda (“it turns your teeth to noodles if you have too much”) and a durian Colada made with lime leaf-infused Thai rum, lemongrass, pineapple and durian distillate, balance the complex, fiery food. There’s also the Milo Dinosaur – condensed milk, brandy and “tons and tons of Milo”, a malted powder originally from Australia but also popular across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Beyond the Milo cocktail, the skewers and a space that feels like a fusion of a wet market and a Thai roadside diner, Farrell simply wants to give Thai food its due. “I [originally] wanted to prove a point about Thai food, [now] that’s really changed because of how many people love Thai food. It’s really exciting to cook Thai food at the moment in London. I think it’s far, far more interesting and exciting than Thai food I’ve seen elsewhere.”
Plaza Khao Gaeng Covent Garden
6 Bedford Street, WC2E 9HZ
Hours:
Mon to Sat midday–10.30pm
Sun midday–8pm
