Experience Phuket like the locals and with the locals! Try excellent small restaurants most tourists miss entirely, local food, desserts and drinks, markets, shops and even beaches!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Mor Mu Dong is quite an unusual restaurant in Phuket. If you enjoy eating off the beaten tracks where many locals go for a great lunch or dinner, Mor Mu Dong is your place. Every Phuket resident knows it, and you have to count the cars in the parking to know that something special is cooking here.
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.
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?
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.
What Phuket Phuket Specialities should you try, and where to find them? We already shared our Best Local Restaurants and Best Classic Thai Dishes, so here are 10 really local specialities dishes, or their popular Phuket variation.
There are quite a few Chinese shrines in Phuket, and each has its own characteristics and unique features, which always offer excellent photo opportunities. The large ones are very popular during the Chinese New Year in February or the Phuket Vegetarian Festival in October.
Big Chicken Restaurant (Thung Thong Restaurant) is one of our three favourite venues in Kathu. If you drove past the Phuket Country Club in the past twenty years, you certainly saw that massive chicken statue on the side of the road.
