Fine dining in one of Phuket’s high end restaurants

What to eat in Phuket

Phuket is a great place to try many different kinds of food, like seafood, Southern Thai food, Hokkien Chinese, Malay, Peranakan and Chinese.

Take a food tour in old Phuket Town to get a taste of what Phuket has to offer.

If you enjoy cooking, take a cooking class and learn how to cook authentic Thai food.

Seafood

Because of Phuket’s location on the Andaman Sea, there is always a wide choice of fresh seafood like fish, crab, lobster, shellfish and squid.

There are seafood restaurants in all seaside towns. Two of them are Rawai Seafood Market and Laem Hin Seafood.

Crab with chili sauce

Rawai Seafood Market

Just North of Rawai Pier near the South tip of Phuket is Rawai Seafood Market, a street lined with seafood restaurants. Here you will find all kinds of fresh seafood, including fish, lobster, prawn, squid and shellfish. Pick your food from the display area in front of the restaurant.

Laem Hin Seafood

Laem Hin Seafood is a large restaurant built on stilts over the sea with great views of the sea and Coconut Island.

There is an extensive choice of mainly seafood and southern cuisine on the menu. Some good items are salt baked sea bass, black pepper blue crab, crab curry and fried prawn cake. All its seafood is very fresh, as the crabs, fish and other seafood are kept in large water tanks in the restaurant.

Laem Hin Seafood is located just North of Phuket Town next to Laem Hin pier.

Vegetable curry

Southern food

Southern dishes are influenced by the Malay and Indonesian cuisine. It’s often more spicy and flavors are more intensive than Central Thai food. Southern Thai cuisine uses a lot of curry paste and chilies.

A few southern dishes to try are:

Khua Kling (beef, chicken or pork stir fried with dry curry and chilies)
Khao Mok Gai (yellow rice and chicken cooked with spices and turmeric), not spicy
Moo Hong (stewed pork with black pepper, coconut sugar, garlic and coriander), sweet and not spicy
Goong Pad Makham (shrimps in sweet and sour tamarind sauce with dried chilies, ginger and garlic)

Peranakan food

The Peranakan or Nyonya cuisine is a mix of Hokkien, Malay, Indonesian and Thai cuisine. It came to Phuket over a century ago when Hokkien Chinese immigrants married local Phuket women.

Phuket is one of the very few places in Thailand where you can eat Peranakan food. Try it at Blue Elephant or The Charm Dining Gallery or at one of the restaurants in shop houses in old Phuket town.

Food courts

Food courts in shopping malls offer a good variety of food at low prices in an air conditioned environment.

Massaman curry with chicken, potatoes and peanuts

Jungceylon shopping centre

You will find the Food Bazaar in the basement floor of Jungceylon shopping center in Patong. Food stalls offer Thai, Indian, European, Chinese, Italian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese dishes as well as desserts and drinks. Load up money on a food court card, the remaining balance is refunded.

Central Phuket shopping centre

You can get food from all regions of Thailand from two dozen shops at the Taste of the Island food court on the ground floor. Also try authentic Thai food and desserts at the Thai Floating Market & Food Paradise.

Patong Beach Food Court

A beachfront open air food court at the corner of beach road (Thawewong Road) and Sawatdirak Road, about 500 meters North of Bangla Road in Patong Beach. Dozens of vendors sell seafood and Thai dishes like Krapao and Pad Thai, snacks, desserts and drinks.

Some of the best Phuket restaurants

Phuket has some of the best restaurants in Thailand. Among them are Blue Elephant, L’Arôme by the sea and Samut.

Blue Elephant

Blue Elephant is located in the Governor’s Mansion, one of the most beautiful colonial style mansions in Phuket Town. The restaurant serves great Thai food including a Peranakan menu. The mansion which is set in large manicured gardens also houses the Blue Elephant cooking school.

Blue Elephant restaurant is located on Krabi Road in old Phuket Town.

L’Arôme by the sea

L’Arôme by the sea serves contemporary French cuisine. The restaurant located at Kalim Bay overlooking the Andaman Sea is listed in the Michelin Guide Thailand.

A few items from the Prestige Menu are French oysters, Oscietra caviar, coconut husk smoked yellowfin tuna, wild Spanish red prawns, Pan seared French Foie Gras, poached Brittany poached Cod, Swiss Alps Cheese Fondue and Binchotan grilled Saitama A3 Waygu. Prices are in the higher range.

Samut

Samut Restaurant serves modern Thai cuisine and seafood. The high end restaurant is housed in a traditional dark teak wood Thai-Chinese building. Their eight course dinner consists of sixteen dishes including fresh seafood like clams, lobster, red snapper, squid, red tiger prawn and blue crab. The number of tables is quite small; advanced reservation is necessary.

The restaurant is located in Nai Harn, on the South tip of Phuket island.