Baba Mansion

A Heritage House with a Peranakan Café and Restaurant

17,947 viewsBy Willy Thuan · Living in Phuket since 1994

Baba Mansion is a restored heritage house on Yaowarat Road in the old part of Phuket Town. By day, it works as a café and a Peranakan culture stop, with coffee, Nyonya sweets and traditional costume rentals for photos. By night, the same house becomes Baba Lee, a Peranakan fine dining restaurant. The green and red mansion is one of the most photographed buildings on this street, and it is an easy walk from Thalang Road. I went to see it soon after it reopened as Baba Mansion.

Baba Mansion Location

Baba Mansion is on Yaowarat Road, close to the main old town streets. Most visitors head straight for Thalang Road, so this stretch is quieter and easy to miss. From Thalang Road, it is only a short walk. If you want to see the wider area first, my Old Phuket Town walking guide covers the streets all around it.

Inside the Mansion

The ground floor opens into a long dining hall with old Peranakan floor tiles in orange, white and black. A large paper dragon runs across the ceiling, which sets the tone as soon as you walk in.

One lounge is full of red paper lanterns, with a long curved sofa in coral pink and printed drum stools around it. Another room has a hand-painted crane mural and a carved Chinese daybed with red cushions. These rooms are made for photos, and most people walk through with a camera in hand.

There is also a costume corner where you can put on a traditional Baba-Nyonya dress for pictures around the house. The arched entrance, with its red lanterns and tiled floor, is the classic shot from the front.

Gula Café by Day, Baba Lee by Night

The mansion runs in two modes. In the daytime, it is Gula Café, the easy, walk-in side of the house. You can drop in just for a coffee and a few Nyonya sweets, with a pandan latte and a range of kueh among the things on offer.

It is a relaxed place to stop and rest between walking the old town streets. You can sit with a drink in the tiled rooms without booking ahead, and there is no need to order a full meal. That makes it an easy stop, even if you are only passing through.

In the evening, the house turns into Baba Lee, a Peranakan fine dining restaurant. Peranakan, or Baba-Nyonya, food blends Hokkien Chinese cooking with Malay spices and coconut milk, so it is close to Phuket’s own Baba heritage. You can read more about my Peranakan culture on the Phuket Town page.

Baba Lee is dinner only, by booking, from 7 pm. It serves a set Peranakan menu of several courses rather than single dishes off a list. The menu features dishes like asam pedas fish, slipper lobster cooked with pineapple and coconut, lamb kari kambing and Nyonya desserts to finish, and it changes through the year.

It is priced at the higher end for Phuket Town, around 4,800 baht a person before the 10% service charge and 7% tax. Two chefs are behind it. Luca Brozzu is an Italian chef who trained in Michelin-starred kitchens in Switzerland, and Patricia Wong, known as Aunty Pat, brings the Peranakan home-recipe side.

I have only visited during the day so far, not for dinner. I will add my own notes on the food once I have eaten at Baba Lee.

The history of the house

Yaowarat Road is one of the old merchant streets of Phuket Town, lined with the green and red Sino-Portuguese houses the island is known for. I have always known this one as the Kanok Kwan House, after the kindergarten that ran here for years, and many long-time locals still call it that.

The Kanok Kwan Kindergarten opened in this house in 1981. It was started by a local woman who wanted a private kindergarten in Phuket that felt like a second home, and it stayed here for more than thirty years. Hundreds of Phuket Town children passed through before the school moved to a larger site on Sakdidet Road in the mid-2010s.

After the kindergarten years, the house reopened as Endless Summer, a coffee shop with a small clothing boutique inside. It became a favourite photo stop on this quiet stretch of road, even though many visitors walked past without going in. Endless Summer has since closed, and the same house is now Baba Mansion.

I have walked past this house through each of these changes, and I am glad it is still standing and still in use. Many of these old buildings in Phuket Town have been lost or left to fall apart. This one has kept its green facade and red shutters every time, so from the street it still looks like the house I first knew.

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