This January, Thailand's Greyhound dining chain will be bringing its flagship restaurant, Greyhound Cafe to London's Fitzrovia.
Greyhound Cafe London will be set over two floors, featuring a canopied patio at its entrance welcoming guests. The ground floor bar and dining room will be decked out with Bangkok style ‘shophouse shutters’, ‘Cho Huay’ (Thai grocery store).
Downstairs, the basement dining room will bring the Bangkok street scene indoors with corrugated metal-sheeted walls, mock folding tables, brightly coloured chairs and Thai ‘Temple Fare’ pendant lights.
Divided between small and large dishes, Thai-style ‘Single Plates’ and a sizeable vegetarian section, the menu at Greyhound Café will pay homage to Thai cooking with the greatest hits of Bangkok dishes but with Greyhound’s signature twists.
First up, diners can choose from ‘Salmon in Hot Pursuit’, a small platter of thinly sliced sashimi-grade salmon in chilli-spiked green sauce; ‘Complicated Noodle’, DIY taco-like wrap of iceberg lettuce and rice noodle sheets with soy-braised pork herb salsa; and Edamame Som Tam seasoned with musky salted black crabs.
For mains, Pork Knuckle Tod Krob, German-style pork knuckle simmered with Thai herbs, deep fried until golden and served with sticky rice. For lighter fare there will be ‘Angry Pasta’, wok-fried with mixed seafood, holy basil and a good dose of Thai chillies and vegetarian Pad Thai prepared with shitake mushroom stems. The sweet toothed can finish their meal with Sago An-Chan, tapioca pearls coloured with butterfly pea flower, served with Greyhound’s signature fresh coconut sorbet.
A list of cocktails that spotlights both Thai heritage and new-gen beverages will be developed in partnership with Thai spirit distillery Mekhong, using the eponymous rum spirit as the base. The new opening will also welcome to London an exclusive range of Thai craft beer from the award-winning Phuket based Full Moon Brew Works. Coffee beans will be Thai and organic, shipped directly from the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai.
The brainchild of Thai designer Bhanu Inkawat, Greyhound was unveiled as a fashion house in 1980. Later in 1998, Bhanu launched Greyhound Cafe in the chic neighbourhood of Sukhumvit, turning the Greyhound brand into a lifestyle phenomenon.
Today there are seventeen Cafes across Asia, from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, celebrating the true spirit of the Bangkok-style cafe.
Inkawat said, “London and Bangkok share a mutually cosmopolitan outlook, so I am very excited to be introducing Greyhound Café to Londoners. Although we are Thai at heart, the restaurant will be anything but a traditional Thai restaurant.
“Our inspirations come from far and wide, some recipes were handed down from our grandmothers, some were dishes from our travel memories and others were inspired by our midnight fridge raids. Just like in Bangkok, we mix traditional and international, street and couture, all fused together in a beautiful, chaotic way”.