Aaharn, Hong Kong: ‘precise Thai cooking’ — restaurant review

I’m sure I’m not alone in missing David Thompson’s distinctive Thai cooking in London. The Australian-born chef has built his career by specialising in this complex cuisine, and for just over a decade pursued his quest for richly authentic flavours and textures at Nahm in Belgravia’s Halkin Hotel. But somehow the arrangement never felt quite right to me: the heat of his cooking never seemed to gel with the hotel’s rather cool interior.

Since the restaurant’s closure in 2012, Thompson has pursued other projects, including Long Chim, which focuses on Thai street food and boasts branches in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. He is also planning to create another more upmarket restaurant, Mahanathi, in the first Orient Express Hotel to open in Bangkok later this year.

Meanwhile, lovers of his style of cooking have another option in the form of Aaharn, which Thompson opened last November in Hong Kong’s recently converted Tai Kwun space. I have now eaten there twice and, as I would have predicted, on the second occasion the cooking was even more precise than the first.

Tai Kwun used to be Hong Kong’s Central Police Station, with a prison and magistrates’ courts included, all set around a central parade ground. Thanks principally to the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the whole site, which is in the middle of the city, has been renovated and made fit for purpose for the 21st century, with art galleries, shops and numerous restaurants and cafés.

Aaharn, which is the Thai word for food, overlooks the parade ground from the first floor, above a noisy, busy bar. At one of the tables on the veranda you almost feel as if you’re in Thailand, thanks to its proximity to an enormous and ancient mango tree. Apparently, it never bore fruit when the site was a prison — but it does today.

Another advantage that Aaharn enjoys is the seemingly ubiquitous presence of restaurant manager and sommelier Kiki Sontiyart. Born in Bangkok to a mother who was a wine importer, she exudes warmth and enthusiasm, putting every customer at their ease.

The menu on my second visit was similar to that on my first with one exception: the dishes now are considerably less hot and spicy. Thompson and his team have obviously listened to their Hong Kong customers, many of whom will have been brought up on the subtler notes of Cantonese cuisine and may have felt that his initial spicing was too aggressive for their palates. However, the food and the ingredients remain unquestionably Thai, just milder.

Although the overall standard of cooking was extremely high, there seemed to be one standout dish in each of the three courses we ordered.

We began with three canapés: a mixture of chicken, prawns and peanuts on small slices of pineapple; betel leaves holding ginger and toasted coconut; and, best of all, a dish described as “egg nets with chicken, shallots and kaffir lime”. Served on a dark blue, ridged plate, it was a great example of culinary technique and distinguished presentation.

Of the four main dishes we chose — a dry red prawn curry, an aromatic chicken curry, some braised pork with five-spice eggs, and chopped prawns simmered in coconut cream and wild ginger — it was unquestionably the first that was the highlight for its rich, succulent flavours, accentuated by a bowl of green mango slices and white turmeric.

I missed Thompson’s rendition of mango sticky rice, which is available only on the lunchtime menu, but my disappointment was assuaged by a dish of glacé kaffir lime, complete with a coconut dumpling inside a banana leaf. This is a dish that is often sold by Thailand’s street vendors, and it relies on the unusual but appetising combination of salt and the highest-quality coconut milk. Here we were in the best of hands.

With one bottle of Heymann-Löwenstein Schieferterrassen Riesling 2015 and one of I Vigneri Etna red 2016, I happily paid a bill of HK$4,000 (£385) for four.

When I asked Thompson whether he had any plans to reopen in London, he told me he had “too much going on in Australia, Hong Kong and soon in Bangkok”. This is a perfectly understandable response but from a professional and personal perspective I am disappointed — Hong Kong, Bangkok and Australia are simply too far away from London.

More articles from Nicholas at ft.com/lander

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