Why are so many Thai restaurants hidden inside London pubs?

Pints and pad Thai may seem like an unlikely pairing. But tucked away in London's backstreets is a culinary tradition with a surprising history.

Three pints into a crisp evening in west London, I'm standing outside The Churchill Arms pub with some British friends, and I'm getting hungry.  

"We can just eat here. I've booked us a table at the Thai restaurant in the back," a friend says.

Maybe it's the ale talking, or the jet lag from my New York flight, but I'm confused. "There's a Thai restaurant here?" I ask. "In the back of the pub?"

My friends whisk me past the bar, where model British war planes, flags and World War Two-era military photographs fill the walls. But as we approach the backroom, Union Jacks turn into Trairong – the tricolour Thai flag – and woven rattan baskets, small boat oars and old kanok metal lanterns dangle from the ceiling.

We pass a busy kitchen filled with the clang of pots and woks, and a Thai waiter leads us to a table in what feels like a tropical greenhouse. Lush ferns dangle from the ceiling, while bright red and yellow flowers sprout from planters and pictures of exotic butterflies cover the walls. Looking back towards the dark, wood-panelled British pub in the next room, I feel as though I've been transported somewhere else.

In reality, I've just stepped into one of London's most unique dining experiences: a Thai restaurant tucked into a traditional British or Irish bar, cheekily known as a "Thai-rish" pub.

Though well-known among London barflies, many visitors may be surprised to learn that roughly 30 Thai restaurants operate out of the hidden backrooms and upstairs lofts of traditional English or Irish-run pubs. At first glance, these portmanteau pubs may seem like a rather unlikely pairing, but over the decades, these fusion businesses have become a distinctive feature of the city's pub culture – and as I'd soon learn, the idea was born right here at The Churchill Arms. 

According to BBC Radio London's restaurant contributor, Stephanie Brookes, Thai cuisine wasn't on most Londoners' radars back in the 1980s, but the city's tastes were changing.

At most pubs, "food was once an afterthought", Brookes says, remembering the ham-and-cheese toasties and packets of crisps served in her youth. At the time, there weren't many Thai restaurants in London, but as Thailand became a popular backpacking destination for young Brits in the late 1980s and '90s, more travellers returned with a taste for Thai food.

"[People who wanted to] try new cuisines and experience different flavours had that opportunity – it's inevitable that tastes [back home in Britain] would start to change as a result," Brookes says. "This was partly a backlash against the bland food and austerity that came before."

The Churchill Arms' current manager James Keogh, remembers how the unlikely idea of serving pints alongside pad Thai was born. As he recalls, an Irishman named Gerry O'Brien moved to London in 1985, taking up ownership of the Kensington establishment. At the time, the bar just served fish and chips, jacket potatoes and other classic British pub grub. O'Brien was searching for a way to liven up the menu when Thai chef Songkot Boonyasarayon asked him if he could cook in the pub's kitchen.

O'Brien was initially hesitant, but once he tried Boonyasarayon's cooking, he agreed to a month-long trial in the summer of 1988. Within a few weeks, London food and restaurant writer Nick Lander recalls that there were lines around the block.

"[O'Brien] just thought it would be something that would work for a few months and that would be it," says Lander, who met O'Brien in 2009. "I don't think he had any idea of it being so popular."

By the early 2000s, the Thai government had launched the Global Thai Campaign, an early example of "gastrodiplomacy" aimed at promoting Thai cuisine around the world. As part of it, the government provided loans to Thai citizens to relocate and share their culture abroad, and within the next decade, the number of Thai restaurants around the world nearly doubled.

In the UK, many Thai chefs were hired in bar kitchens, with some chefs fully taking over day-to-day culinary operations or converting backrooms into a restaurant inside the pubs. Soon, Thai-rish pubs began to take off elsewhere in London.

"Many [Thai-rish] pubs rival top restaurants in terms of quality and provenance of ingredients," says Brookes.

As I scan the menu at The Churchill Arms, I spot dishes like pad kee mao (stir-fried "drunken noodles") and a special duck curry made with red chilli and coconut milk. I opt for the pad ped (red curry stir-fry), whose rich braise, bold spices and sharp acidity balance well with the malty sweetness of traditional English and Irish beers.

"Its model is perfect, if you think about it," Brookes says. "Delicious ingredients that are easy to prepare in a relatively small kitchen space, and the aromatic flavours work incredibly well with a crisp, light beer."

Kate, a London foodie who posts about Thai food in pubs on TikTok, agrees: "Thai food and pubs are two of the world's greatest things that only become stronger when in tandem with each other," she tells me. "Thai food mixes the sweet, spicy, sour and salty, and pubs mix drinking, danger and questionable decisions. What more of a powerful combination could you ask for?"

Ryan McElhinney, owner of The King's Arms near London Bridge, moved from Ireland in 2001 to help his father run the pub and remembers how they started serving Thai food. "[At the time] if my friends ever came to visit, I wouldn't recommend them to have food at our pub, because I knew it was just average… [things like] sausage and mash," he says.

Shortly after, McElhinney's brother met and married a Thai woman. She soon took over the kitchen, and by 2002, the pub was serving Thai food. "Our Thai food got better and better. We had Thai chefs making the food, and the food they have is amazing," says McElhinney, comparing the daily stream of curries such massaman and panang to the anticipation of "Christmas morning".

Today, McElhinney co-owns multiple pubs across London, and they all serve Thai food. He maintains that pad Thai and spice bags (its chips tossed with spices, stir-fried vegetables and chicken) remain their most popular dishes: "You gotta give the customers what they want… but alcohol and spicy food and a bit of salt, it lends itself."

More like this:

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• The quest for the perfect pad Thai

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In Nunhead, south-east London, Irish pub Skehans serves Thai food from a kitchen managed by Thai chef Charlene "Chai" Skehan. She moved to London from Thailand age 13, learning English and training in various pub kitchens. Twenty-five years ago, she and her husband Bill took over the pub and opened Chai's Garden Restaurant at the back.

"Thai food paired naturally with beer, particularly Singha and Tiger, although I'm surprised by how well the beef dishes went with Guinness," she says.

Chai's kitchen has provided a pathway for numerous Thai chefs in London. All her chefs come from Thailand, recruited through connections she has built throughout her time in London. Two of them have worked alongside her for more than 20 years and can still be found cooking at Skehans. Others have been trained up in her kitchen and gone on to work in nearby pubs, contributing to the presence of Thai kitchens across London.

As we finish our fragrant curries, stir fries and ales in the backroom of The Churchill Arms, I think about something Chai said.

"Thai food belongs in the pub."

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