JKS and Luke Farrell to open Thai restaurant in Soho

The chef Luke Farrell and JKS Restaurants will open a second Thai restaurant in Soho in September. 

Speedboat Bar will follow Luke’s Plaza Khao Gaeng at Arcade Food Hall, and has been described as ‘a love letter to Yaowarat Road’ in Bangkok’s Chinatown. 

An announcement said ‘guests can expect the fast and furious wok cookery with roasted meats and zingy seafood salads. 

‘They will be encouraged to sink whisky sodas, share stir fries, pick at river prawns sticky in tamarind sauce, then go back for more whisky sodas.’ 

The menu will ‘explore the ingredients, flavours and techniques that took Luke to Bangkok and its unique foodways’, the release continued. 

Food might be Chinese in origin but has become uniquely Thai. Roasted meats and spicy sauces will hinge on the specialist Thai herbs and ingredients cultivated and grown at Luke’s nursery, Ryewater, in Dorset.

On the menu will be drunken noodle dishes, stir fries and sticky meat braises; curries of Lychees and roasted duck; and soya chicken and winter melon, tempered with fresh salads of green mango, crispy fish, chillies and pork floss. 

There will be just one dessert at Speedboat: Candied pineapple and butter pie, which is Luke’s twist on a Thai treat and an ode to the innumerable 7-11 shops that cover the country. 

‘Speedboat Bar will be inspired by my friends, the speedboat racers whizzing down the klongs in Samut Sakhon and the neon-fuelled party of Bangkok’s Chinatown,’ said Luke.

‘Things I live for, a fascinating traditional Thai sport and a historic cuisine coming together. Speedboat will feature seafood salads hit with acid and chilli, wok flamed noodles, roasted duck curries, all manner of fermented vegetables, waxed meats and crispy omelettes on hotplates… and a tom yam recipe passed to me from my favourite racer.’