Nahm at The Halkin

I love Thai food and have eaten in many exceptionally good restaurants, but Nahm was an EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING experience. The food was excessively salty to the point of being nearly inedible, no special flavours or textures and completely unbalanced. The wine list is horribly overpriced: Dr Loosen Riesling 2010 which cost around £8.50 in a shop being sold for £38 at Nahm. Even the ambience is a let down, it feels very much like you are in the reception of a hotel.

Of course, I have the advantage of knowing David Thompson in Australia. I rang him to make a special menu for me and my friends. I didn't need to. The standard menu was special.

If you just knew this guy and what he has done for Thai Cuisine, you would then understand just how impossible it is to write a bad review of the London Nahm. Not many non-Thais would have the nerve to open a Thai restaurant in Bangkok.

Anyway, my view of the vast majority of less than perfect reviews is that they are not at all aware of the different styles of Thai cuisine, that the dishes are ALWAYS served together even on formal occasions in Thailand. David has studied the Thai language, covered the countryside interviewing the Grandmas for their secret recipies. Many Thais that I met when working in Thailand will not eat “hot” food.

It is really very difficult to combine authenticiity with the average British palate. but enough of that, now my experience at the Nahm.

There is no point in going overboard about the careful integration of spices, textures and balance. Thais are always careful to balance acidity, chilli, salt, and sugar with a variety of textures. Soup is a must. Interestingly chicken green curry (gaeng keow wan gai) is rarely eaten by the Thai populace and its absence no surprise to me. Thus David's menu for us was just a matter of absolute perfection.

My guests were totally uneducated aboutThai authenticity, one very fearful of spicy strange food, but both were absolutely blown away and wondered how they would ever eat at a suburban Thai restaurant again!

Husband's 52nd birthday – I was struggling to find somewhere to take him. But Perrier did their top 100 restaurants last week, and I found Namh, the only Thai restaurant in the UK on the list, languishing around number 60 or 70. We'd visited around half the UK restaurants on the list (Fat Duck, Hakkasan, St John…) and thought they were all brilliant (in their different ways), so I thought M. Perrier might be more reliable than M. Michelin (some of his London recommendations are dubious and Nahm has recently lost its star). And husband loves Thai food (insists on eating curry for every meal including breakfast every time we go there on holiday). So, I booked it. Then I read the reviews and got scared. Then I thought, “hey ho, it's close to home, it's a night out, what's the worst that can happen?”.

First impressions were good, nice room, friendly staff. It's not trendy, it's just a very nice hotel dining room. Husband is 52 and needed to go immediately to the loo, but asked a waiter to send over a couple of beers while he was there and they arrived in pleasantly unfussy style. We got menus, felt very relaxed in the chilled atmosphere, and went for the 60 quid tasting menu. But you can pick what you want from the a la carte and create your own individual tasting menu. Nice. Then we ordered wine. I picked a modest 38 pound Malbec, The waiter opened the bottle away from the table, poured a little to check it was fine, and then brought it over for us to taste. It was really nice, good value for the price. After a very tasty amuse bouche, a delicious starter (a crab and chicken confection). Then, the rest of the meal came all together. They had checked in advance we were OK with simultaneous serving. It was all fantastic. A seafood yellow curry of amazingly silky texture was a high point. Pork belly with holy basil was gorgeous, squid and pork crackling looked as though it had been fried in batter, but, in fact, it was the squid and pork itself I think, deep fried into a condensed crispy essence of itself. Lovely and clever surprise. Langoustine salad was excellent. The soup did indeed work as an excellent palate cleanser between dishes (as suggested by our waiter). We are very greedy and, as soon as we finished our rice portion, one of the waiters came over and said “I'll get you another one” and it was there in seconds. We didn't even have to ask. Then we had 3 glasses of dessert wine , two deserts (lovely, can't remember what they were), an almagnac, and a glass of white wine to round off. Had a nice chat with our waiter about cycling (he cycles around london, Husband just about to do London to Paris). Bill, for all of that gorgeous food and not inconsiderable quantity of good quality booze was under 250 quid including service. Husband said best meal since Fat Duck. Yes it is spicy and, at times, salty, but this is a Thai restaurant, Doh! I am at a loss to explain the bad reviews of this quite exceptional place.

Came across this excellent photo essay from inside the kitchen!

www.imigephotos­.com/gallery_noseka_2010_london_nahm.php

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London's nahm is the first Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in Europe and rightly so.

It's here that Australian chef, David Thompson brings originality to the table with strong, fresh flavours which result in impeccable dishes that excite and pleasure the taste buds.

imigephotos is pleased to present this “behind-the-scenes” peak at life inside a Michelin star kitchen in one of Europe's finest restaurants, nahm London.
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VERY DISAPPOINTING – 4 of us went to Nahm last night for my birthday, splashing out on the £60 a head Thai meal, as we expected it to be the best of the best. Food was good (not astonishing or outstanding, just pretty good) but the evening was ruined by the deeply average overall exprience. The menu is laid out in 5 sections, starters, soups, mains etc – which give you the impression that if you order the Thai meal, your dinner will come in nice stages, so you can enjoy a full and nicely paced meal. How wrong we were… The soup course came with the Thai salad and the hot mains all in one – we queried it as it seemed ridiculous – it was all going to go cold by the time we'd had our soup. And salad on a hot plate?

The stupid answer was that the soup was a palate cleanser to aid enjoyment of the mains – utter tosh as the soups were very strong hot and sour, and were pretty palate-blowing even for us, who all love spicy Thai food, hence booking at Nahm. We felt 100% ripped off and made fools of. Also not helped by the couple of questions we asked (e.g. of an unusual green bean in one dish, only to have the first waiter ignore us and the second one to proudly tell us it was ‘a bean’). I wouldn't waste your cash here – they may have a Michelin star but I had a better eating experience at my local Thai in Wimbledon or Fulham for £300 less than this rubbish cost us.

I see that some reviewers here claim that they have been to Thailand and “love Thai food” but hate Nahm. They mmean, I think, that they've eaten in insipid hotel and tourist joints and think they know what Thai food is. They don't, hence the “unpleasant” surprise. Nothing at Nahm is “ridiculously” hot – it is quite mild compared to real Thai food, but hotter than most westernized “Thai” places. They get it about right for a London audience, most of who would not be able to take the extreme heat, say, of Bangkok street food. And if you can't speak Thai you almost certainly haven't eaten it. Complaining about Thai “spiciness” is like going to a sushi restaurant and complaining that you don't like fish.

So this brings us to whether Nahm is worth the detour. You could argue that Thai food finds its greatest expression in aforementioned street food; I think it does. But there's room for this kind of attempt to transpose Thai food into a luxury restaurant setting. Thomson has done something interesting here : this is a mixture of aristocratic dishes and humbler classics, and I've eaten several times at Bo.Lan his franchised place on Soi 24 in Bangkok. Thais sniff at it a bit, but for my money it's a fine restaurant and fresh take on the cuisine.

Nahm is quite similar, if four times more expensive. The dishes are perfectly rendered and true to origin ; ignore all these fools droning on about things being “too salty” or “unbalanced” or “slimey” – they don't know what they are talking about. This is how the food is. It's radical in some ways, and not everyone's cup of tea. But whatever. You cannot offer technical criticisms if you don't know the cuisine involved. I had dinner next to a large group of hi-so kathoeys from Bangkok and I could hear them saying in Thai that they thought the dishes were “fine” and “true to Thai.” Okay, they are the judges of these matters!

Personally, I like the quiet, un-sceney room, the low noise level and the glimpses of the Halkin garden; chic and
understated. My girlfriend took me for dinner and we had just come back from Bangkok eating at places like Jai Fai and Chote Chitr so the comparisons were interesting. Nahm's food is delicate and precise, and as good as a western restaurant can get at this sort of thing – and given how crappy most European Thai food is, I am grateful.
Two problems : no ma-muang kao niaow for dessert ( sulk ) and the other desserts were not very good; and then the cost. 225 for three people, but no wine.

Okay, it's Belgravia and not Klong Tuey, but still, why is London food so overpriced? This is not the Halkin's fault, I guess; it's a seriously bad-value overpriced city and the rent there must be astronomical. So we forgive them. The wine list is quite intelligent, and there are the right German and Alsacian wines to handle this kind of food. We stuck to Singha beers, however, and that seems to be better in my humble opinion. I'd call ahead and see if they have Thai mangoes in for the above mentioned dessert – the sublimest on earth when they get it right.

When I decide to go to a Michelin starred restaurant, they better blow me away, as I don't expect anything less. Regrettably my recent dinner at Nahm was just pretty good. Nothing blew nothing unfortunately.
The atmosphere was pleasant and cosy, the dining room was full and it was obviously designed not to distract from the food. Service can not be knocked; it was unfussy, friendly and our waiter was very helpful in recommending us dishes to order.
I have to admit that even though the company was great, nobody but me wanted to go for the tasting menu, which I think is the only way to really understand what a kitchen is trying to showcase. The way to eat Thai food is to have many dishes (a spicy, salty, sweet one etc) on the table at once, including a soup, and eat all of it alternating the tastes and clean the palate in between with some rice. But having been overruled on this, I reluctantly ordered ‘starter’ and curry – no soup. Grunt.
My jasmin martini was a lovely start, but after that my enthusiasm stabilized itself on one level: pretty good with a soft nod. The beef salad and the vegetarian salad were nicely seasoned and bursted with the aroma of thai basil, chillies, fish sauce and palm sugar. But the scallop salad was a little too nam pla-y for my taste an had an anemic look due to the coconut milk. After one spoonfull I had no desire to go back there.
For main courses we shared curries of seabass, duck, quail and beef. All the portions were huge, and for 4 people we could have easily just ordered 2 mains after our starters and we still would have been very full. But the damage was done so we bravely ate.
I was desperately waiting for one outstanding dish, but there was nothing on our table that everyone greedily dove into. However if I have to give one dish a memorable mark it would be the seabass curry. It was nice and spicy, the flavours were beautifully balanced and the seabass held its ground well against all that chillie. The rest was (as before) pretty good but far from amazing. What truly upset me was the jasmin rice. Maybe the chef had an off day or something, because I refuse to believe that an award winning thai kitchen can ever so slightly overcook the rice. I was as crushed about that as I was about not getting my way on the ordering process. We shared 2 desserts amongst our group, none of them memorable.
Overall I had a terrific evening, but the food did not add to it in any particular way. I went to Nahm with great expectations and left somewhat deflated. It was not the best Thai meal of my life, and not the second best either. Would I go back? Only if I got to do the ordering this time.

Found it all a bit disappointing. Given the Thai's are a race of people you might consider to be on the petite side the portions would stand against the finest Burger bar the USA could put up in competition. Starters came with a bowl of rice – Steak/mint salad had possibilities but was overdone with too much of something in the sauce – think it was nam pla, anyway it began to give me a very slightly sick feeling as I soldiered on to the end of the platter. My wife's starter was very nice but I can't recall what it was – involved Prawns anyway.

We both felt pretty full at this point and would happily have gone home. Hardly before I had managed to undo my trousers and the mains arrived. More rice of course. Curries for my wife and I were prefectly ok, Chicken & Duck respectively but I had forgotten about them by the time we had crawled to the tube. A mushroom stir fry was left mostly untouched, just tasted a bit slimy.

No way we could fit in a desert. Service was very nice and friendly but all in all too much, too fast and too little going for it. Not sure how Michelin stars are awarded but this was probably the most unmemorable eating experience I have had in a long time, except for the bill which was £145 with half a bottle of wine. Which of course I wouldn't have minded if I felt like waxing lyrical about it.

Absolutely wonderful! One of the best meals we have had since we moved to London. My husband was pleasantly surprised. As he put it, “upon entering the restaurant I expected ‘frilly’ food with small portions, but it was very hearty and tasted fantastic.” It might seem a little pricey compared to other Thai restaurants, however, for the quality, taste, and portion size (almost two meals worth), it is well worth the money. It has a pleasant atmosphere and very attentive wait staff who aren't overbearing. Cocktails are a little pricey and small, so check the prices before you order (which I didn't unfortunately) or you might be surprised that your drink cost almost as much as your meal.

We went to Nahm and opted for the tasting menu – this was the second time that I had eaten in a Michelin star restaurant and I was looking forward to the idea of Michelin starred Thai food. I will point out that yes- i have been to thailand and I would like to think that I have a good palate but I found the food disappointing – the flavour combination seemed random – I tasted the individual components of the dish they were lovely but together rather confusing. The curry was very hot which is as expected as thai curries are firery – but were lovely though nothing special – I expect to be blown away and i wasn't and I paid £90 for the priviledge.

The staff were reasonably attentive and we appreciated the sommelier's recommendation as it complimented the food well. But I won't be back …

If you appreciate and understand true Thai food then go to Nahm. If you don't then go to the pub. The flavours conjured up by David Thompson are quite simply phenomenal. Yes, some of the food is spicy, but it's meant to be. If you want a toned down version then there are many downmarket pubs that now offer ‘Thai Cuisine’. Thompson's flair, expertise and ingenuity are a wonder to behold. From resurrecting long dead recipes by aquiring antique recipe books to acting as culinary advisor to the King of Thailand it is no accident that his is the only Thai restaurant in the world to be awarded a michelin star.

The decor is bland but comfortable. I like to think that this is deliberate in order to provide a blank canvas to showcase the food but suspect it is more to do with the fact that it is in the rather beige Halkin hotel. Service is attentive and informative without being overbearing and the staff are on hand to explain the best way to tackle the menu. Portions are large and ordering a selection to share a la carte is more cost effective than the tasting menu.

I was rather disappointed to read some of the negative comments made about Nahm and hope that this will encourage lovers of Thai food who like to push their boundaries slightly to try what I consider to be one of the best places to eat Thai food on the planet.

We'd heard fantastic reviews of the restaurant. However, we were thoroughly disappointed. The waitresses, although pleasant, didn't assist you in understanding and choosing from the menu. We ordered from the taster menu. The canapes were great (enjoy these!) and the noodle starter was nice. However, the soup course after that was explosively hot. We were not warned by the staff. After this our mouths were too numb to attempt to enjoy any courses thereafter. The pork dish was fatty. The chicken curry was again ridiculously hot. Even the rice was completely stuck together. When it became apparent that we weren't enjoying our meal, the staff enquired if everything was ‘alright’. When we explained our disappoint we were asked ‘have you actually ever been to Thailand? Because this is actually quite mild thai food.’ We have been to Thailand. We love Thai food. We hated Nahm. The senior management were condescending and the food was more than disappointing. Pudding, what can only be described as congealed coconut milk, was appalling. We went home hungry with a bill of £230. I would definitely NOT recommend this restaurant.

My boss went there for lunch and came back horrified. According to his account, the overall choice for lunch was extremely limited, the started he ordered smelled like shoe polish and tasted like one, too. Then he ordered a soup which was so salty he could hardly swallow a spoonful, and the curry dish for the main was average and unimpressive. Overall he described this as a major disappointment and one of his worst food experiences (and he normally dines out in top restaurants a few times a week). This one is now definitely off our list…

Nahm is one of my favourites for a little bit of posh Thai. The dining room can be a little quiet sometimes but that can also be a bit of a blessing as you sit back and relax to enjoy some of the finest Thai cuisine in town. David Thompson so obviously puts so much time and effort into the menu creating a plethora or creative and delicious dishes. The staff are incredibly helpful especially when you need a little more information about the dishes and their tastes. The beautiful private dining room is another big selling point for me and is perfect for a larger but still intimate diner. The sommelier's are also very good at finding the perfect match for the food and will not always point to the pricier selections if asked for guidance. I wish they did deliveries but as they don't I wouldn't be averse to staying a night at the hotel.