Thai Food in New York (2025)

A late‑night Bangkok‑style dining room where charcoal grilling meets sleek cocktails; praised by the Michelin Guide for refined yet bold plates and a scene that captures modern Thai energy.

A downtown staple for Southern Thai seafood—coconut crab curry, steamed whole fish, zesty salads—now expanded to Williamsburg in May 2025, reaffirming its status as a citywide essential.

Husband‑and‑wife chefs reinterpret century‑old Thai recipes with verve—think beef tongue massaman and ma hor—earning 2025 praise as the city’s standout Thai from prominent critics.

SriPraPhai brought great Thai to NYC—they're still bringing it - Review - New York - The Infatuation

There's no shortage of excellent Thai food in Queens these days, but SriPraPhai is the pioneer that paved the way. More than three decades on, you can still count on the Woodside restaurant's bold yet balanced flavors, like an incredibly bright pork larb that rings through your head as if someone struck a tuning fork. photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte Pause Unmute Sripraphai Tipmanee, originally a nurse, opened her Woodside restaurant in 1990 to serve fellow Thai immigrants. She soon found a broader fanbase for her green curry with perfectly firm eggplant and lightly fried soft shell crabs. SriPraPhai has since expanded into a bigger space with a beautiful back garden and refrigerators of sweets up front, and opened a second location on Long Island. It’s no longer cash-only, and now has a whole bar (you can still BYOB with a corkage fee)—and it’s still one of the city’s great Thai restaurants. photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte Pause Unmute At 38 pages, the spiral-bound menu is as thick as an iPhone and features dishes from all over, from the northern signature khao soi, to a particularly great version of the street-food classic pork leg over rice. Order widely, but plan on coming back for more, especially in summer when you can sit in the courtyard and feast on roasted duck salad or beef tendon soup. Food Rundown Papaya Salad This salad delivers on every level, including some pretty strong heat that sneaks up while you’re busy admiring just how crisp and crunchy the strands of papaya are. SriPraPhai’s version is especially heavy on dried shrimp and roasted peanuts, for an irresistible pungent crunch. photo credit: Kate Previte Pork Larb Between the tender minced pork, fistfuls of fresh herbs, a generous squeeze of lime juice, and some sneaky slivered chilis, every bite of the laab is different and exciting. photo credit: Kate Previte Roasted Duck Green Curry Some bites of the duck are on the dry side, but the green curry itself is worth an order. It’s rich with coconut milk, making it velvety and lightly sweet (without neutralizing the considerable green-chili spice), and fragrant with cilantro and lemongrass. Extra points to the juicy little tomatoes and sweet-tart hunks of pineapple. photo credit: Kate Previte Pork Leg Over Rice This lovely, comforting braise, a street-food staple, might be our very favorite thing here (we have so many more things to try). The sweet sauce with warm star anise notes is balanced by the tang of pickled mustard greens. photo credit: Kate Previte Drunken Noodles The drunken noodles are easy to overlook, given that there are other dishes on the menu that you might not find at your local Thai spot, but this is a great rendition, with fresh, bouncy noodles. Get it with beef. photo credit: Kate Previte Green Tea Ice Cream A refreshing way to soothe your tongue after a chili-heavy meal. - Molly Fitzpatrick

Ayada Thai - Review - Elmhurst - New York - The Infatuation

Elmhurst has incredible Thai food: kee mao noodles with Vicks levels of basil flavor, grilled skewers perfect with 10,000 beers, and Esan-style laab that makes your brain sweat. And while Ayada may not rock with a signature dish or style that makes it as memorable as some of the other spots in the neighborhood, it's Elmhurst's best jack-of-all-trades Thai restaurant if you're looking to feed a group. The optimal way to order here is to get a little bit of everything. (Actually, get a lot of everything.) But there are a few dishes that would be unfortunate to skip, like a raw shrimp salad that tastes like a refreshing Thai ceviche. And because you're inevitably going to run into some rich meat on the menu, go for Ayada’s sour, fruity massaman curry. It’s a perfect companion to the crispy pork belly or some beautifully roasted duck—and just another example of Ayada being able to do it all. photo credit: Teddy Wolff The more people you come with, the more noodles, curries, and whole-fried fish you can try. Ayada's space makes things easy for a group, with its casual twin dining rooms, quiet indie rock, and $42 bottles of malbec. We usually order enough food for twice the amount of people sitting at the table so everyone gets leftovers. Your friends, cousins, and cousins' friends will thank you. It's not every day a restaurant makes everyone this happy. Food Rundown Raw Shrimp Salad Spicy and punchy, this raw shrimp ringed with slivers of bitter melon tastes like Thai mariscos and should be on every table. photo credit: Teddy Wolff Crispy Catfish Salad You should absolutely order Ayada’s crispy catfish salad, but make sure you eat it fast. The flossy, crunchy pieces of catfish get soggy after sopping up the juices from a mango salad. photo credit: Teddy Wolff Massaman Curry Massaman curry rarely tastes this bright and sour. It's just as good in the winter as it is in July, especially with fatty duck or crispy pork that do wonders for the warm spices and fruity acidity. photo credit: Will Hartman Drunken Noodles Great for takeout. Not as great in the restaurant. There are more exciting dishes here that don’t travel as well, so save this one for delivery. photo credit: Teddy Wolff Crispy Whole Fish You can choose which salad you want on top of your bone-in, head-on whole snapper, fried light and crispy. If you haven’t gotten a papaya salad yet, get it on top of this fish. But if you have, then go for basil. It brightens up everything. photo credit: Teddy Wolff - Will Hartman

Queens Thai Restaurant Zaab Zaab Is NYC’s Newest Isaan Addition | Eater NY

Opened three weeks ago on Elmhurst’s two-block Thai strip along Woodside Avenue, Chef Aniwat Khotsopa's exciting new spot is a breezy, well-decorated space with plenty of outdoor seating, a striking painted ceiling of roosters, stars, and confetti, a neon mortar on the wall, and a glassed-in open kitchen (with Chinese-style roast ducks hanging on hooks) facing a bar serving wine, beer, and sake cocktails. The menu, which spotlights those ducks, offers a deliriously good larb ped udon ($19) featuring minced duck plus bits of skin and liver for multi-texture, a charred-ginger (galangal) note, a healthy dose of chiles, and lettuce leaves and fresh herbs (cilantro, mint, even dill) for wrapping — notably, no basil. The mieng pla prow ($35) is a roasted, spice-marinated tilapia stuffed with lemongrass and pandan, presented with a tray of herbs, two sauces (one dark and sweet, the other briny and citrusy), and rice noodles so you can wrap bites in lettuce and dip them; the fish skin, however, is too salty and not crisp. Papaya salads can be fortified with pickled black crab ($16.95) for added crunch and funk, and several dishes use a house-made, thicker fish sauce. A banana-leaf-wrapped hor mok (catfish or pork belly with bamboo shoots) highlights bai yanang for a subtler, creamier sourness and is soupy rather than custardy, so I recommend sticky rice alongside it. Zaab Zaab also leans heavily into offal — gizzards, liver, skin, tripe, spleen, and intestine appear across meat salads and in tom hang ($19), a steamed assortment served with pungent dipping sauces — and I see this emphasis on organs as one way Khotsopa and the restaurant are expanding what Thai food can be in the city. - Robert Sietsema

Beloved steam‑table canteen where curries, stir‑fries, and braises are ladled over rice—an affordable, transportive taste of Bangkok cafeteria culture noted by local reporters in 2025.

East Village noodle specialists spotlight regional recipes—boat noodles to khao soi—in a vintage‑touched space, recognized by the Michelin Guide and praised by national editors.

Wayla - Review - Lower East Side - New York - The Infatuation

During your meal at Wayla, you’ll probably be distracted by its coolness. You’ll be focused on who’s drinking which cocktail at the bar, and the imminent possibility of a swimwear photoshoot on the patio. It won’t be until later that night, when you find yourself texting your dinner partners things like “noodle-wrapped meatballs” that you realize the food here is incredible. Give it a few days and you’ll be at a party referencing the sen chan pad lobster to anyone who’s digested food before. And, after a week or so, when you’re absent-mindedly doodling Thai sausages at work, you’ll realize that Wayla is a place you should keep going back to you again and again. In some ways, this restaurant is a manifestation of the neighborhood it’s in. It’s an attractive Lower East Side dungeon at the bottom of a steep staircase on Forsyth Street that you’ll have trouble finding no matter how many times you’ve been down it. The inside has two narrow dining rooms and a bar with a mirror so antique, you can barely see your reflection. Out back, there’s an idyllic patio full of rubber plants, oversized wire and wicker chairs, and outdoor rugs. If we were the sort of people who sat around with parasols, this is exactly where we’d want to twirl them. All of this will temporarily take your attention away from the plates of food in front of you, which tend to arrive quickly and all at once. photo credit: Noah Devereaux But later, certain dishes will resurface in your mind. Consider these Wayla’s contributions to the Billboard Hot 100. First, the pork meatballs wrapped in crispy noodles that look like crunchy yarn balls. They’re individually handwoven with knitting needles, and are the most impressive spherical appetizers you’ll ever eat. Another dish you’ll maniacally overanalyze later is the fried branzino. It comes presented as a whole fish, but the middle has already been cut and fried in perfect chunks. The result is like a Picasso fever dream, or, at the very least, a Cubist sculpture trying to impersonate a Picasso fever dream. These, the homemade Thai sausage, the lobster noodles, and the green beans with tofu will stick a landing in a way only a child who spent the summer at gymnastics camp knows how. photo credit: Noah Devereaux The food at Wayla is mostly excellent. But, like a lot of great things built and operated by humans, there are some misses. The daily curry is one. We love the actual curry (which is supposed to rotate, although it’s often a sweet, yellow vegetable base), but the vegetables in the curry are fairly flavorless. The Hat Yai fried chicken is another. It’s the chicken version of someone who married their boring high school sweetheart and now lives in the suburbs (only with some good green sauce to dip in). These small faults aside, the great stuff will be what you remember about this restaurant. Even if (hypothetically) your friends primarily describe you as “quiet” and “super nice,” spend two minutes at Wayla and you’ll chameleon into a Lower East Side person who confidently hails cabs. In other words, Wayla is cool. But unlike many cool restaurants, this place has substance. It’s where you’ll find some of the city's great Thai food. You’ll just have to go home, change into your pajamas, and dream about noodle-wrapped meatballs to fully know it. RESERVE A TABLE Food Rundown Moo Sarong Each of these little crispy wrapped meatballs is handwoven with knitting needles. We’d like to sit, watch a movie, and eat a bucket of them like popcorn. photo credit: Noah Devereaux Sai Oua Meet Wayla’s homemade pork sausages. They crumble as you eat them, and you’ll want them for breakfast with eggs. Actually, come to Wayla during brunch on the weekends and make that happen. photo credit: Noah Devereaux Larb Pla Tod There’s nothing more luxurious in this life than being presented with a whole fish. This excellent whole fried branzino comes with the middle pre-cut and fried into hunks with mint and shallots on top. So you still get the illusion of the whole fish, but without as much of the fork-work. Sen Chan Pad Lobster OK, fine - being presented with a lobster is more luxurious than being presented with a whole fish. At $36, this lobster noodle dish is the most expensive thing on Wayla’s menu, and it’s worth the money if you’re with a group. The rice noodles are saucy, sweet, and eggy. They come stuffed in the head of a lobster, with both lobster claws, and some peppers and chives. photo credit: Noah Devereaux Kua Kling Kung Sometimes this shrimp is incredibly spicy. Sometimes it’s on the milder side. No matter what, your server will likely give you the obligatory “it’s spicy” warning when you order it. But even when it has a lot of heat, the shrimp tastes gingery and more complicated than just “hot.” photo credit: Noah Devereaux Tua Pad Prik Khing There’s something incredible about these wok-fried string beans that come with slightly-crispy tofu. When we inquired about what goes into them, they just said garlic, ginger, and chili sauce. Frankly, we need more answers. photo credit: Noah Devereaux Som Tum Thai A very good and very refreshing papaya salad. It’s sweet and sour at the same time, and has a ton of lime and some peanuts on top for crunch. photo credit: Noah Devereaux Daily Curry Despite saying “daily curry” on the menu, this is usually a yellow vegetable curry. We like the thin, coconut-based broth. But the vegetables themselves feel like they may have once lived in the freezer aisle. photo credit: Noah Devereaux - Hannah Albertine

A compact, warmly run spot honored as a Bib Gourmand; look beyond the staples for crispy catfish with green mango salad and herb‑packed stir‑fries that showcase deep regional know‑how.

Laser‑focused on Thai chicken rice—fragrant rice, tender birds, gingery sauces—this tiny specialist draws steady lines and frequent shout‑outs in neighborhood roundups of Little Thailand.

Tiny, cash‑leaning favorite run by a veteran chef, celebrated by local critics for potent jungle curries, crispy pork, and papaya salads that helped define Queens’ Thai reputation.