The Best Thai Restaurants in Melbourne for a Flavoursome Feast

Melbourne’s Thai food scene now stretches far beyond pad Thai and green curry. The best Thai restaurants in Melbourne move through Southern Thai seafood and dry curries, Isan sausages and som tum, Chiang Mai khao soi, Thai-Chinese supper food, mookata and charcoal chicken.

Some names have already become part of the city’s eating vocabulary: Jinda Thai in Abbotsford, Soi 38 for boat noodles, Nana Thai for mookata, Dodee Paidang for fiery tom yum noodles and Chin Chin, still packing Flinders Lane more than a decade on. But what makes Melbourne’s Thai scene so good right now is how regional it has become. Chefs are cooking from Surat Thani, Phuket, Isan and Chiang Mai, carrying family recipes, specific techniques and late-night eating habits into Melbourne kitchens.

So, where should you eat Thai food in Melbourne? Start with the institutions, then follow the smoke from the charcoal grills, the bowls of curry noodles and the tables crowded with dishes you may not recognise yet. These are the Thai restaurants shaping Melbourne’s appetite right now.

Bar Spontana

Bar Spontana started with drinks, but chef Pipat “Noomie” Yodmunee has made the food just as compelling. Yodmunee grew up in southern Thailand and has lived in Melbourne for more than 20 years; his menu moves across regional Thai cooking, especially the ferments, preserves and hotter flavours he grew up with. The charcoal grill does much of the work: pork neck with nam jim jaew, turmeric squid, fermented sausage and beef cheek curry have all appeared. Around them sit wild-fermented beers, low-intervention wine and cocktails built with ingredients such as roselle, lemon myrtle and lacto-fermented fruit.

4 Saxon Street, Brunswick

Yang Thai

Yang Thai is the chicken shop Narit Kimsat spent nearly a decade wanting to open. Birds sit in salt brine for five hours, then overnight in black pepper and turmeric before charcoal and oven; lunch packs add sticky rice, som tum pounded to order and green chilli-coriander sauce. Chips come with tamarind ketchup, because the suburban Australian chook shop is part of the reference point too. The room is Kimsat’s imagined childhood bedroom, lined with CDs, vintage Thai cookbooks and WWE magazines. Even dessert gets serious attention: ex-Navi pastry chef Angela Mogridge makes Thai milk tea flan and pandan chiffon cake on site.

49 Blessington Street, St Kilda

Yaowarat

Named after the road running through Bangkok’s Chinatown, Yaowarat is built around khao gtom, a light rice soup eaten with a spread of salty, sour and wok-fired dishes. A bowl costs just $1, leaving the table free for spicy fish-sausage salad, caramelised pork belly, pippies with sweet Thai basil and hae kuen, prawn-and-fish-paste rolls wrapped in tofu skin. Almost everything passes through the wok here, even the soups. Open until midnight every night, it carries a little of Bangkok Chinatown’s supper culture into Waratah Place.

7-9 Waratah Place, Melbourne 

R Harn

R Harn opened without a dress rehearsal. Top Piyaphanee and Tang Suwankamnerd received their food-registration certificate on a Friday afternoon, moved the kitchen team in over the weekend and were serving lunch by Monday. The couple behind Soi 38 use the La Trobe Street restaurant to go south, into the seafood, shrimp paste and Malay influences of Southern Thailand. King prawns meet pungent pentai beans; mackerel cooks in coconut milk with garcinia; sour curries run through barramundi and prawns. Even pad see ew switches its usual flat noodles for round Hokkien ones.

264 La Trobe Street, Melbourne

Aung Lo

Down Flanigan Lane, behind a roller door, Aung Lo centres dinner around mookata, the Thai barbecue-hotpot hybrid that cooks meat over charcoal while vegetables and noodles simmer in broth around it. Owners Surachai Kunchairattana and Kittipod Tongchan modelled the restaurant on the increasingly cross-cultural barbecue joints found in Thailand today. Pork belly and ox tongue share the grill with A5 Miyazaki Wagyu; garlic rice, grilled mackerel and spicy salmon fill the gaps. Japanese chochin lanterns hang overhead, while Thai children’s books, Korean manhwa and Japanese manga cover the walls.

Flanigan Lane, Melbourne

Udom House

Bangkok-born Aum Phithakphon lives above Udom House, which explains why the mismatched chairs, books, plants and old timber floors feel more home than fit-out. By day, she folds Thai flavours into Melbourne cafe life with pandan kaya toast, house-made curry pies and serious coffee. Thursday to Saturday, the lights drop and Udom becomes a music bar, closer to Thailand’s raan nang chill culture, with live music, beer and wine alongside ga phrao, crab curry and tamarind chicken. Thai tea Basque cheesecake can finish either version of the day.

Victoria Buildings, Unit 1/343 Victoria Street, West Melbourne

Boonchoou

Boonchoou means “good karma”, but there are 35 years of combined Chat Thai experience behind the cooking. Owners Chalermpol Tancharoensap, Tanapat Limpaiboonwattana and Poowadon “Sam” Pothiprasert built the Heffernan Lane menu around family recipes from Thailand’s four regions, including dishes rarely seen outside home kitchens. Pothiprasert’s grilled fish curry with green banana comes from his mother; popia sod nods to Bangkok’s Thai-Chinese history. Even the room tells stories, from terrazzo inspired by Thai-Chinese homes to a metal scroll carrying monk-blessed inscriptions. One of Melbourne’s best Thai restaurants for going well beyond the standards.

11 Heffernan Lane, Melbourne

Nora Thai

Nora Thai grew from homesickness. Owners Palmmy Aninpukkanuntin and chef Kana Bannakorn both grew up in Surat Thani, and the menu is full of the Southern Thai dishes they missed after moving to Melbourne. Sator beans come with prawn, pork mince and shrimp paste; kua kling is dry, fiery and heavy with turmeric and makrut lime; sour fish curry runs sharp with chilli and tamarind. South Yarra is the original 20-seat room, while the CBD sibling stretches the same cooking across a larger dining room.

111 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

69 Davis Avenue, South Yarra

Khao

Khao devotes most of its attention to one thing: khao soi. Owners Kittipod Tongchan and Surachai Kunchairattana model their version on Chiang Mai, with coconut curry broth, soft egg noodles, crisp noodles, pickled mustard greens, raw onion, chilli and lime. Fried chicken is the crowd favourite, though Wagyu and aburi salmon also appear. The open kitchen runs the length of the room, so you can watch broth simmer and milk toast caramelise in real time. Dessert is no afterthought either: Thai milk tea bingsu and brown-butter toast are worth keeping room for.

335 La Trobe Street, Melbourne

Khaosan Lane

At Khaosan Lane, dinner starts with a domed grill in the middle of the table. Pork belly, beef, prawns and squid sear on top; their juices run into the broth below, where glass noodles, greens and an egg eventually follow. That’s mookata, and it’s why Postal Lane smells so good after dark. Add deep-fried duck beaks, a Thai drinking snack, a beer tower and live music from 8.30pm. String lights overhead, H&M metres away, Bangkok logic in a Melbourne laneway.

Shop G25, 350 Bourke Street, Melbourne GPO, enter via Postal Lane

Khao Soi

Khao Soi is devoted to the Northern Thai curry noodle soup chef Yuwat grew up eating in Chiang Mai. The broth starts with hand-pounded curry paste and coconut milk, then soft egg noodles disappear beneath crisp noodles, pickled mustard greens, shallot and chilli oil. Stick with chicken on the bone, or veer into katsu, saba shioyaki or charred seafood. Deeper into the menu are Chiang Mai dishes such as khanom jeen nam ngeo and larb kua. Chinatown, with its old Chinese trade connections, is a smart home for it.

107 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne

Khao Man Gai

Khao Man Gai is built around one dish and the patience it takes to get it right. Owners Chorlada “Corey” Ratchatapat and Nonthawat “Nathan” Kongsarai opened the Lonsdale Street restaurant in 2022 after moving from Bangkok, dedicating the menu to Thailand’s answer to Hainanese chicken rice. Whole chickens are poached for hours, then the broth goes back into the rice with garlic and ginger. The original arrives with skin-on chicken, cucumber and fermented soybean sauce; fried and roast versions follow. Lunch gets busy fast.

Shop A&B, 389 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

Soi 38

For a decade, Soi 38 made some of Melbourne’s best Thai food from a CBD car park without a gas line. Owners Chavalit “Top” Piyaphanee and Phawinee “Tang” Suwankamnerd started with boat noodles and tom yum wonton soup; early on, nine bowls could be a day’s trade. The queues came later. Now, Royal Lane holds a room five times the size, murals by Thai-Melbourne artist Bundit Puangthong and, finally, roaring gas woks. Boat noodles remain, joined by smoky pad krapow, fried pork jowl, moo ping and coconut custards steamed in tiny Thai moulds.

235 Bourke Street, Melbourne (enter via Royal Lane)

Thai Town

Thai Town crams a Bangkok night market into a 200-seat corner of QV, right down to the ’90s advertisements, wooden shopfronts and festoon lights shipped from Thailand in six containers. The menu runs past 98 dishes, with boat noodles, grilled sausages, pork-intestine skewers and crispy quail eggs moving out from different stations. Up front, a mini grocer sells instant noodles, durian crisps and salted egg cakes; after 9pm, live music changes the room again.

Shop 25 Artemis Lane, QV Melbourne

Raan Kan Eang

Kan Eang is the second-generation chapter of a Melbourne Thai family that has been feeding the city since 2006. Siblings May and Nat Pongvattanaporn grew up around Thai Culinary and Raan Kan Eang; on Flinders Lane, those family recipes sit beside newer ideas. The whole fried Lucky Fish comes under tamarind and herbs, chicken ribs arrive dusted in house seasoning, and slow-stewed beef turns up in green curry with avocado. There’s history here, but dinner never feels preserved in amber.

306 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Dodee Paidang

Down the stairs at Dodee Paidang, the tables fill fast with office workers, students and Thai Melburnians over bowls of its signature tom yum noodles. Choose your noodle, toppings and chilli level, then brace accordingly; the scale runs from gentle to genuinely punishing. Beyond the soup are som tum, grilled meats, Isan dishes and the sort of sprawling menu that rewards repeat visits. The original Little Collins Street basement still has the best atmosphere: bright lights, tightly packed tables and bowls arriving almost as quickly as they’re ordered.

353 Little Collins Street, Melbourne

245 Swanston Street, Melbourne

100 Kingsway, Glen Waverley

1 Main Street, Box Hill

Longrain

Longrain has been part of Melbourne’s Thai dining story since 2005, and nearly disappeared altogether in 2020 before Scott Pickett stepped in and reopened the Little Bourke Street institution. The old horse stable still centres dinner around long communal tables and dishes built to share: scallops folded into betel leaves, the famous pork-and-prawn eggnet, five-spice caramelised pork hock and southern-style gai golae cooked with coconut. Upstairs, Longsong takes over later with vinyl and cocktails.

44 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne

Chin Chin

Fifteen years after the first queues formed on Flinders Lane, Chin Chin is still feeding a packed room from 11am until late. Executive chef Benjamin Cooper remains at the helm, and the kingfish sashimi with lime, chilli, coconut and Thai basil has crossed firmly into cult-classic territory. The menu roams across South-East Asia rather than staying strictly Thai, backed by curries, charcoal cooking and the familiar Feed Me format. Downstairs, GoGo Bar still catches the overflow. Few Melbourne restaurants have held onto this much noise for this long.

125 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Nana Thai

Queues are part of the evening at Nana Thai, Melbourne’s original Thai-style hotpot and barbecue specialist. By dinner, Bourke Street tables are crowded around mookata domes, pork neck and belly hissing over charcoal while prawns, calamari, noodles and greens cook in the broth below. The menu stretches deep into Isan territory too, from fermented-fish som tum to moo ping and tom saep with slow-cooked ox tongue. It’s open until 1am, loud in the best way, and the spice levels mean exactly what they say.

169 Bourke Street, Melbourne

BKK

Named for Bangkok’s airport code, BKK looks well beyond the capital. Head chef Sungeun Mo works across Thailand’s regions from a huge open kitchen built around a five-metre charcoal grill, so dinner arrives smoky, sharp and often properly spicy. Pork jowl laab comes punched with chilli and toasted rice; khao soi folds barbecue chicken through coconut curry; and Mo’s dry soft-shell crab curry takes its cue from Bangkok legend Jay Fai. Sitting kitchen-side, with the woks going hard a few metres away, is half the fun.

Level 3, HER, 270 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

Cookie

Cookie has been making a racket above Swanston Street since 2003. By dinner, tables are buried under green papaya salad, banana-leaf barramundi, grilled Thai sausage and curries with roti, the beer hall is already loud, and somebody is hovering for one of the tiny balconies. The drinks list is enormous, cocktails are threaded with Thai basil and pandan, and the whole first floor has that particular Curtin House energy: crowded, slightly chaotic and still somehow exactly where you want to be.

First Floor, Curtin House, 252 Swanston Street, Melbourne

Naga Moon

Naga Moon gets busier as Hall Street slips into evening, with low light, clinking glassware and tables quickly crowded with plates. Head chef Andy’s menu moves from coconut-crusted prawns and kingfish with green nahm jim to sticky pork belly and spanner crab fried rice, while the cocktail list keeps pace with the heat. Save room for the pandan tiramisu, all soft sponge, cream and that grassy pandan sweetness that somehow survives even after a table full of chilli.

Shop 6/40 Hall Street, Moonee Ponds

Ranong Town

For some of Melbourne’s best Southern Thai food, head east. Ranong Town is chef-owner Oradee Thammarak’s Ferntree Gully restaurant, built around the cooking she grew up with and recipes passed from grandmother to mother to daughter. Curry pastes are made in-house, and the menu gets far more interesting once you move past pad Thai: bitter bean stir-fried with curry paste, slow-braised moo hong, Hat Yai fried chicken and whole barramundi with green mango. The flavours run hotter, sourer and less sweet than many Melbourne Thai menus, with Malaysian and Indonesian influences running through the south.

73 Dorset Road, Ferntree Gully

Rin Sura

Rin Sura is one of my favourite places to eat on Sydney Road. Chef-owner Pilantana cooks with a deftness that makes the whole menu hard to narrow down: wagyu cheek massaman, tom kha scallops, burrata with roti, then whatever else the table can justify. The room is low-lit and cosy without trying too hard, the back courtyard is lovely on a warm night, and the cocktails are genuinely excellent. It’s relaxed, generous and deeply tasty, the place I end up recommending whenever someone asks where to book Thai in the north.

206 Sydney Road, Brunswick

Charlong 

Charlong begins with chef Alex Kaew’s childhood in Chanthaburi, where she helped at her grandmother’s food stall before later leading kitchens at Longsong and Rice Paper Scissors. Charcoal, wok cooking and slow braises now anchor her St Kilda menu. The 12-hour lamb shank massaman uses her grandmother’s spice recipe, while prawn dumplings arrive in tom yum coconut bisque with squid-ink sago. Even familiar pad see ew and green curry carry Kaew’s regional Thai perspective. One of Melbourne’s best Thai restaurants for food with a family history behind it.

Shop 2/124 Carlisle Street, St Kilda

3 Sisters Eatery

3 Sisters Eatery earns its place among Melbourne’s best Thai restaurants with cooking that starts from scratch: curry pastes, sauces and marinades are made in-house at its Brunswick East kitchen. The current menu moves from ma hor, with caramelised pork, chicken and prawn over pineapple, to tom kha barramundi and a jungle curry of slow-poached quail sharpened with krachai and fresh green peppercorns. Even the chilli tofu noodles have regulars. Homestyle at heart, but far more interesting than the phrase suggests.

Unit 1/41 Lygon Street, Brunswick East 

Jinda Thai

Since 2013, Jinda Thai has turned an old Abbotsford sewing factory into one of Melbourne’s defining Thai dining rooms. Run by the Tanapat family, it still packs out for som tum with soft-shell crab, crispy barramundi and green apple salad, duck larb, boat noodles and a deeply spiced beef massaman. The menu roams well beyond the standards, particularly through Isan cooking, and the chilli warnings deserve respect.

Sitchu Tip: Order widely, add sticky rice and finish with Thai milk tea or a slice of crepe cake.

1 Ferguson Street, Abbotsford

Tom Toon 

Tom Toon is one of Melbourne’s best Thai restaurants for Isan food, and the menu gives you 23 ways into som tum alone. There’s green papaya with soft-shell crab, bamboo and river snail, or pla ra-fermented mud fish, alongside sai grok Isan sausage and tom sab, a sour, spicy soup deepened with toasted glutinous rice. The room is tiny, the portions aren’t, and heat levels run all the way to “very hot”. Go hungry and order beyond the familiar.

241 Victoria Street, Abbotsford

Tom Phat

Tom Phat has watched Sydney Road change around it since 2004. More than two decades on, the Brunswick institution still works across South-East Asian flavours with a strong Thai streak, its sauces and curry pastes made in-house. The order that has survived the years is the twice-cooked pork belly, lacquered in chilli caramel and cut with crisp apple slaw. Add pad kra pao or choo chee curry, then a Thai whisky sour fragrant with basil, star anise and cinnamon.

184 Sydney Road, Brunswick

Loved our pick of the best Thai restaurants in Melbourne? Continue eating your way around the world at the best Japanese, Greek, Italian and French restaurants in town.