Although many of the 30 million travelers who visit Thailand each year head to its southern beaches and islands, relatively few will eat much southern Thai food while there. At southern Thailand’s simple guesthouses and fancy resorts alike, the green curries and pad Thais of Bangkok, and western food, tend to dominate. Southern Thailand has, of course, its own unique cuisine, but if you don’t speak or read Thai, it can be difficult to find and there are very few resources on the topic in English to point you in the right direction.
Correcting this was one of my motivations in writing and photographing The Food of Southern Thailand, published this year. I visited restaurants, homes, street stalls, farms, markets, homestays, libraries and agricultural research centers, and met with home cooks, farmers, academics, chefs, food writers, eaters, and just about anyone else who would talk to me. This research spanned four years and took me to each of southern Thailand’s 14 provinces, from hyper-touristy islands like Phuket to the little-visited, landlocked communities near the border with Malaysia.
Spending months and months eating in just about every corner of Thailand’s south revealed a cuisine that is spicy—arguably the country’s spiciest—as well one that’s also nuanced and varied. The slow burn of black pepper is just as prevalent as the sucker punch of chilies. Fresh turmeric and fresh herbs abound.
The region’s vast coastline means that fish and seafood are present at about every meal, often in the form of seafood-based condiments found only in the region. And that coastline has also meant that a variety of cultures including the Chinese, Muslims, and South Asians have contributed to the region’s gastronomy over the centuries, making it arguably Thailand’s most diverse regional cuisine.
Across Thailand, hundreds if not thousands of vendors claim to serve Hainanese chicken rice in the style of Betong, a predominantly Chinese town near the Malaysian border. From north to south, the dish is almost always tasty, but for the real thing it’s obligatory to head to this hyper-casual, exceedingly popular restaurant at the source.
Phuket is one of the most visited places in Thailand, home to an uncountable number of restaurants that cater exclusively to foreigners. But right in the middle of the island, in Phuket’s charming but neglected, landlocked capital, is this decades-old eatery serving khanom jiin, curries served over rice noodles, one of the most beloved and deeply local dishes in southern Thailand.
Muslims have had a profound influence on the cuisine of Thailand’s south, and one of the most beloved Thai-Muslim dishes is sup nuea, a savory, spicy, tart beef soup. This restaurant in little-visited Pattani, in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim deep south, specializes in the dish, serving it with a couple simple but unconventional (at least to outsiders) sides.
Go just about anywhere in Thailand and you’re bound to find a vendor serving kai thawt haat yai, Hat Yai-style fried chicken. The salty, savory, fragrant dish is most likely going to be tasty even if you’re not down south, but there’s something special about trying it at its origin, especially at this immensely popular, to-go only street stall in the eponymous southern city.
This tiny, casual, longstanding sweets shop located in a rural corner of Phatthalung Province, in southern Thailand, is one of only a handful of places in the country serving saakuu ton, a dessert of tiny, starchy pearls made via a time-consuming process from sago palms.
Trang is one of the most Chinese cities in Thailand, the type of place where dim sum and roast pork take precedence over pad Thai and grilled chicken. An excellent entry point to the city’s Sino-leaning cuisine is this ancient food court that unites a handful of vendors serving Chinese-origin dishes, many boasting subtle local twists.
The curry stall might be the most emblematic type of eatery in southern Thailand, and Nakhon Si Thammarat is the ancestral home of the genre. This family-run place in the center of the town offers one of the most delicious curry stall experiences in Thailand’s south, serving a vast spread of distinctly southern Thai dishes that are just a bit more refined than elsewhere.
Much of southern Thailand’s Muslim community can trace their origins back to Malaysia. This stall in Pattani, in the country’s largely Muslim deep south, serves an exceedingly popular version of nasi dagae, “trader’s rice,” rice paired with fish curry and sides, a dish that also stems from Thailand’s southern neighbor, and one that’s not generally available elsewhere in the country.
Thai Muslims have their own unique cuisine, one that extends to—and that quite possibly excels at—breakfast, and these dishes, which range from sticky rice based sweets to a type of rice salad, shine at this decades-old restaurant in Yala, in Thailand’s deep south.
The city of Chumphon is the northernmost extent of the region that’s generally considered southern Thailand. Plucking from this culinary crossroads, Yay Puad, a home-based restaurant located just outside of Chumphon’s city center, blends central and southern Thai ingredients, cooking techniques and dishes resulting in a menu of delicious dishes not found elsewhere in the country.
Baba—sometimes known as Nyonya—cuisine blends Thai and Chinese ingredients, dishes and cooking styles. Phuket Town is one Thailand’s only outposts of Baba culture, and Raya, a decades-old institution that’s arguably the city’s flagship restaurant, is one of the few places in the country that serves Baba-style dishes.
Think there’s no local food on the hyper-touristy island of Ko Samui? Think again. This decades-old restaurant serves seafood-forward, uber-local dishes that one would struggle to find on the mainland. (And the location, right on the beach, doesn’t hurt.)
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