Phuket restaurants serve all kinds of cuisine but finding real Thai food can be a little challenging. The large majority of the restaurants in the island’s tourist areas, such as Patong Beach, Kata or Karon, have been adjusting their tastes to accommodate first-timers. You probably would never see Thai people eating in those places, and it’s usually a sign. Real Thai food is often found in more modest areas of Phuket, and we list some great Local Thai Restaurants here. Phuket Seafood is also famous, and you should try the real thing without paying a fortune by checking out our Best Local Seafood Restaurants list.
Rimpan Seafood is a small but great Phuket local restaurant hidden in plain sight in the north of Phuket Island, near the bridge that connects the island to the mainland. Thousand people drive past Rimpan each day without realising such a great place sits right here.
Go Benz Phuket has been one of Phuket’s most popular local restaurants for over 15 years. Go Benz served a relatively small choice of noodle soups and rice porridge, and by keeping it focused, they became very good at preparing them.
Sabai Corner is a beautiful Thai restaurant hidden in Phuket, not far from Kata Noi Beach. Only a few dedicated travellers will find it or try to find it.
Mee Ton Poe (Mee Ton Poh) has served some of the best-known Hokkien noodles on Phuket island for many years, since 1946 to be precise. It used to be a tiny, modest restaurant at the clock circle in Phuket town
Khun Jeed Yod Pak Restaurant is an institution in Phuket Town and one of the best local restaurants on the island. It is open as far as I can remember, which is more than 20 years now. It became famous for a dish Thai people love called radna.
Som Chit Restaurant is famous for its delicious Hokkien Noodles Soup, and people from Bangkok who know about it would stop here for lunch when they visit Phuket Town.
Post Views: 12,005 Taokhun Seafood Restaurant Taokhun Seafood is a hidden restaurant on the east coast of Phuket located somewhere near Phuket International Airport. This… Read More »Taokhun Seafood Restaurant near Phuket Airport
Ko Yoon Restaurant is a very small and discreet place serving amazing Hokkien Noodles. If you happen to visit Phuket Town, chances are you walked passed it without noticing it, it looks like any other anonymous local hole-in-the-wall restaurant. But Ko Yoon has prepared those delicious big yellow noodles for decades and locals know how good they are.
Eating on the beach at one of Phuket’s beach restaurants is a great way to make the best of your tropical holiday. Thai food is excellent and cheap; the weather is warm all year round, the sea offers a fantastic backdrop, and the sand is so soft under your feet.
Bangla Street Food is the latest opening in Bangla Road, the heart of Patong nightlife. Street food is a smart move in this part of town. Bangla Street Food opens late, and it’s really casual. So it’s actually the perfect place before AND after the party. This is something really fantastic about Patong: you can party until 3 or even 4 am and still enjoy some seafood.
Kalim Rim Lay Restaurant is a little-known restaurant serving good honest Thai food and seafood at a good price. Best of all for some of you, it is located not far from Patong Beach, just past Kalim Beach. Rim Lay is a very relaxing spot to enjoy lunch or dinner with spectacular sunsets if you are lucky to get one as we did.
Tu Kab Khao is a popular Thai restaurant in Phuket Town that serves great southern Thai food. Give yourself a chance to try their selection of dishes that are typical of Phuket. Tu Kab Khao received a Michelin rating from the new Michelin Guide for Phuket, a sign of excellent food.
Aek Rawai Seafood Restaurant is one of the few local seafood restaurants peppering the roadside of Rawai Beach. This small restaurant doesn’t have any particular sign and it doesn’t attract a mass of hungry tourists, but this is where we love to go for a real seafood lunch or dinner.
Lock Tien food court in Phuket Town is a place every person living in Phuket long enough knows. It doesn’t look like much but with 50 years old history, it’s probably the oldest food court on the island. What really matters is that Lock Tien serves some real Phuket specialities.
What can be better than eating right on the beach when on holiday on such a beautiful island as Phuket, but such restaurants have become hard to find? Actually, there used to be quite a lot of places where it was possible, but after ‘the big cleanup’ of 2015, most restaurants and beach clubs were found to be illegally built and therefore removed.
The Beach Bar Phuket is a local restaurant half-hidden on Panwa beach, away from most tourist crowds. Once a modest wooden shack, the restaurant grew in popularity and now displays a long row of tables and plastic chairs.
Peang Prai Restaurant (Krua Piang Prai) is an excellent local venue in a green nest next to Bang Pae waterfall. Mostly unknown to tourists because of its remote location, Peang Prai is one of the two great places to have lunch if you happen to be in the area.
Rawai View Cafe is a charming little restaurant and bar with a beautiful wooden terrace overlooking the bay of Rawai, in the very south of Phuket, a good place for lunch in the shade of trees or for a dinner by the sea.
Baan Chom View is one of the popular Thai restaurants hanging high above the beautiful beach of Kata Noi in the south of Phuket and serving a vast choice of Thai food and a few western dishes.
Rawai Seafood Market started as a modest local fisherman village where you would buy some local catch to take home. Rawai beach, in the very south of Phuket, is also known as the Sea Gypsy Village
On The Rock is a beautiful open-air seafood restaurant built on the rocks at the southern end of famous Karon Beach with a unique location and superb views of Karon Beach.
SILK Restaurant & Bar at Andara Resort Phuket is an upscale and much-talked-about Thai restaurant set in a beautiful and elegant design that overlooks Kamala Beach. With polished wood, high ceilings, warm tones and an elegant design, Silk Restaurant is instantly pleasing to the eyes.
Kalido is a trendy seafront restaurant set at the southern end of Bang Tao Beach, open for lunch and dinner. Kalido is an excellent place for a relaxed dinner by the sea and a lounge venue in the evening.
Khao Rang Breeze is one of the three popular restaurants sitting at the top of the very scenic Rang Hill in Phuket Town.
Nikita’s Beach Restaurant serves Thai and seafood for over 20 years. Hidden by the sea under large trees at the very end of Rawai beach, Nikita’s serves great seafood and Thai food.
Catch Beach Club, by the famous Twinpalms Resort, is reborn on Bangtao Beach and is as popular as ever. This beach venue was the first to open on the island and the one that triggered the fashion.
Laem Hin Seafood is one of the best-known local seafood restaurants in Phuket. Built mostly on an immense wooden terrace on the east coast of the island, Laem Hin is huge but it can get pretty full on weekdays dinner and even more on weekends.
Café Del Mar Phuket, located at the northern end of Kamala Beach next to Intercontinental Phuket and Novotel Kamala, is surprisingly discreet during the day but buzzing with people in the evening and even more on weekends.
The Pad Thai Shop is a tiny restaurant on the side of the back road of Karon Beach. It’s so small and modest; you would drive past it without paying much attention if it wasn’t for its growing reputation and a large yellow signboard that says ‘The Pad Thai Shop’.
Kanom Jeen is a traditional Thai breakfast dish that’s particularly popular in Phuket and southern Thailand. It consists of fresh, thin white rice noodles served cold or at room temperature with a curry of your choice. Common options include fish curry (Nam Ya Pa), beef curry (Kang Nua), chicken curry (Kang Kai), or sweet prawn curry (Kang Nam Prik).
Sizzle Rooftop Bar and Restaurant is a romantic place at the top of the Avista Hideaway Phuket Patong in the south of Patong Beach, part of the MGallery by Sofitel, an award-winning luxury resort.
Heaven Rooftop Restaurant is a little-known viewpoint terrace hidden below the famous Karon Viewpoint , with a relaxed style usually found on beach clubs and is a great place to end the day with a sunset.
EAT Bar & Grill Phuket Restaurant is a tiny place on the second street of Karon Beach. Thankfully, many people talk about the restaurant.
Phuket street food is fun, cheap, and a great way to experience simple real Thai food. It definitely is more authentic than in tourist restaurants you find in Patong Beach. It’s fast and a lot cleaner than you might think.
Number 6 Restaurant ‘Up The Hill’ is one of the most popular places in Patong Beach, we all know that. But did you know that there are two Number 6?
Kopi de Phuket, a very small restaurant, has made its name in Phuket Town for a while. It looks strangely familiar and serves some really typical Phuket dishes in an eclectic decor, but what Kopi de Phuket does best is coffee in Phuket style.
Romsai is a little restaurant well hidden from view, with a beautiful view of the sea and a nearby beach. Serving local Thai food for lunch, definitely has a fun mood, feeling like being far from Phuket.
It might be strange to recommend a steakhouse to travellers coming a long way to Thailand, but there comes a time when we crave a good old fashioned steak.
Talung Thai at Paresa Resort stands out for its immense open clifftop terrace and sunset views over the Andaman Sea, not far from Kamala Beach. We’ve been back a few times, most recently after it earned a spot in the Michelin Guide for Phuket.
Raya Restaurant is a unique restaurant combining all the right ingredients to make it a perfect local experience. They serve great food in a superb setting in an old Thai house kept just the way it has always been, with no excessive renovation but well maintained.
Phuket floating restaurant ‘Kruvit Raft’ is one of the most original ways to enjoy dinner when you get tired of your ‘Same Same but Different’ Thai food restaurant. Try this unusual but popular place floating between Phuket Island’s east coast and Maphrao Island.
Panwa House is a white Sino Portuguese restaurant surrounded by palm trees, right on the secluded beach of the Cape Panwa Hotel on the east coast of Phuket.
If you stay in Phuket for a while or if, like us, you happen to live here, there comes a time when you feel like something different for dinner, something good and fun. This is usually the day we choose to go to a ‘Mookata’ or a ‘Yakiniku’ in Phuket Town.
Chaiyo Seafood is a simple little restaurant close to Phuket town if you feel like a nice seafood lunch by the mangrove, without getting far from the city. Nicely built in a comfortable setting, Chaiyo Seafood keeps its livestock directly in the mangrove stream.
Pan Yaah Seaview Restaurant on Patong Beach is a little gem you should reward yourself with if you choose to spend your holidays in Patong Beach, in a romantic place with a sea view, good food, not overly touristic.
La Gritta Phuket is an Italian restaurant at Amari Phuket Resort, ranking high on our Most Romantic Restaurants in Phuket. It has a unique view of the entire Patong bay and is a perfect place for a romantic evening with a view.
Eating fried insects in Phuket and Thailand seems to be the ‘ultimate cultural challenge’ for most visitors. How many of you tried these crunchy snacks from street carts? A few. How many actually liked them?
Blue Elephant Phuket is a high-end Thai restaurant built in a renovated Thai house set in an immense garden in Old Phuket Town. Pracha Phra Pitak Chinpracha Mansion is a fantastic old mansion that used to be a governor’s house, but was abandoned for a long time.
Thanoon Seafood Restaurant is perfect for spending a half-day in a unique location, a breezy place right on the beach of a stunning bay in the very north of Phuket Island. Thanoon Seafood has found itself a little golden spot no one had thought about before: next to the Sarasin Bridge connecting Phuket to the mainland. This small bay benefits from a gentle breeze with amazing views of both the open sea and the new bridge on the other side.
Nai Dam Restaurant in Kathu looks just like any restaurant by the roadside of Phuket. It’s not fancy, there are no exterior signs of luxury and even the restaurant signboard is hardly visible.
Tunk Ka Cafe is one of our favourite restaurants in Phuket Town, a long-established hillside place beautifully built on top of Khao Rang Hill, with striking panoramic views of Phuket city. Tunk Ka Cafe is a romantic place, with three separate terraces framed with large trees, and a nice breeze flowing through always keeps the place cool.
Savoey Seafood Restaurant might not be the best seafood restaurant in Phuket, but if you don’t want to or can’t drive outside Patong beach and don’t feel like dining in a food court, it’s a good place for a seafood dinner.
