Lawrence's Reviews

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… More