Like Londoners say of buses, you wait for one and then two come along. By virtue of fortuitous coincidence, your reviewer visited a pair of Thai restaurants on consecutive Tuesday evenings. It was an obvious opportunity to compare and contrast. Think of the experience as a two Thai taste-off. Both had strengths and weaknesses, but there had to be a winner: Supawan beat Kolae.
The two restaurants could not be more different. Kolae (visited first and suggested by Gourmand Gunno’s dining comrade for the evening) has become a London dining phenomenon. Located in trendy Borough Market and backed by the team behind Spitalfields’ Som-Saa, it is almost impossible to get a reservation. Supawan, by contrast, is located on the Caledonian Road, close to King’s Cross but in one of the very few central London districts that can still be considered upcoming.
At Kolae, there is a specific angle. The clue lies in the name. Kolae, also spelt as ‘golae’ or ‘gaw lae’ in Thai refers to the technique of skewering meat, next marinading it in coconut curry and then grilling it over an open flame. It is a big thing in southern Thailand, apparently. Supawan’s chef-patron, Wichet Khongphoon, hails from Phuket, which is in the south of the country. However, his approach is much simpler, to recreate the flavours of where he grew up. He’s been doing this in London for over 20 years. Kolae opened in 2023. It is run by Brits. You get the picture.
More than just the culinary approach, there is also a marked aesthetic contrast. Kolae is a three-floor extravaganza with on-trend music and a décor/ vibe that would not feel out of place in New York’s Greenwich Village. Supawan keeps it simple. The interior is more old school. If you sit on the right-hand side of the restaurant, you can also admire the products of the neighbouring florist. Where the two venues did overlap was in terms of service. Waiters in both restaurants were somewhat overbearing with insistence not compensated for by efficiency. On each occasion we had to ask regularly for things previously ordered while simultaneously respond to questions if we wanted more. Perhaps it comes with the territory, although the table-turning at Kolae bordered on the aggressive.
When it came to food, each dish was an outstanding success at Supawan. Admittedly your reviewer had visited previously and so was au-fait with the menu. If anything, however, both the aubergine laab and beef curry (ordered also on the first occasion) were better than recalled. Dishes tried for the first time also comfortably matched this level. Stand-out was a wonderful duck composition (pictured left), which combined tender meat with endless flavour intensity derived from the accompanying Massaman potato curry sauce. At Kolae, all was novel, and we chose widely across their menu (shorter and simpler than Supawan’s). There were probably as many misses as hits at Kolae. If there were a commonality, then it was perhaps a metaphorical over-egging of spice. Intensity tended to overwhelm subtlety. This principle also applied in a particularly egregious shrimp paste dish which ramped up both the chilli and the fish umami. Notably the best dish at Kolae was labelled as a take on a traditional Phuket – recall, the hometown of Supawan’s Witchet – meal of soy-braised middlewhite belly and ribs. British pork combined with Thai flavours in a rich sauce (pictured right) was a masterpiece. Time to tuck into some Thai then, but choose carefully where you go.