Royd in Phuket Town – a food experience we won't forget

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Why we went to Royd

We visited Royd on our trip to Thailand just before New Year 2025, and we had our two girls with us. The restaurant is MICHELIN Selected, so not a Michelin star, but Michelin describes the cooking as modern southern Thai, and owner-chef Suwijak "Mond" Kunghae received the MICHELIN Guide Young Chef Award in Thailand 2026. That fits very well with what we experienced: a young team working with extreme focus and ambition on the local cuisine.

Atmosphere and the room

Royd sits on Dibuk Road in the middle of Phuket Town, surrounded by plenty of traffic, life and noise. From the outside, it is not a place you would guess was a Michelin-recommended fine dining restaurant. But inside, the mood changes completely. The room is modern, almost Nordic in style, and you sit in small booths or close to the open kitchen, so you can watch the chef and the young team at work. It is simply lovely to sit and look on while they fiddle with the little courses.

A slightly different start

We started with rice wine. When you are used to Burgundy, Chardonnay and classic European wines, rice wine is a different experience: very sour, almost vinegary to our palates, but it was a fun way to be thrown straight into something else. We also got the classic little compressed napkin that unfolds in water.

The menu, a journey through southern Thailand

We had the Festive 8-course menu, The Best Selection, and the strongest thing about it was that it wasn't just a sequence of fine dishes. The menu was built as a journey through southern Thailand, with ingredients, flavours and inspiration from different provinces, including Phuket, Phang Nga, Trang, Songkhla and Pattani. There was even a small map of southern Thailand tucked in with the menu. That is exactly what made the visit so interesting. Familiar Thai flavours such as chilli, curry, acidity, fermentation, shellfish and local herbs were served in a completely different and far more precise way than we know from classic Thai dishes.

The small courses

The evening began in classic fine dining style with small snacks and bites, and if you ask us, the small courses were clearly the best and most inspiring of the night. The sheer range of flavours was fantastic. We particularly remember a macaron-like course, Sour Mango with Sweet Fish Sauce, a local clam with coconut vinaigrette and betel leaf served in the shell, and a small crisp tofu skin tart with smoked pig's head, pickled chayote and a spiced tamarind sauce. There was also a beef tartare with bilimbi and southern Thai wild spices on the menu. The plating was incredibly beautiful, yet still clearly rooted in Thailand rather than trying to look like European Michelin food.

Krill, caviar and shellfish

Next came Ranong Thai krill shrimp chawanmushi with malindjo, smoked Huahin caviar and blue crab from the Andaman Sea, and that one really was an experience. Then followed Andaman squid with Phuket pineapple and southern Thai sour curry, Phatthalung 3-river prawn with cowa leaf and rice cracker, the catch of the day with Krabi fish curry and homemade rice noodles, and oysters from Surat Thani with seafood noodle and Phuket soy sauce. The point is that every single dish had its own regional story, and it is rare to be served so many different flavours from one country in a single evening.

Curry and the main course

Along the way, the menu moved into the bolder southern Thai flavours and curry elements. This was no classic panang curry, but far more refined and complex interpretations. Towards the end came a larger meat course with BMS9 Tajima Phuphan Thai Wagyu, rice and curry. It served as the main course of the evening and brought together much of the journey the menu had built up.

Desserts and a parting gift

The desserts were very beautifully plated and continued the local narrative, with plum and Songkhla palm sugar among other things. To finish, we were given a small parting gift from the restaurant. A really nice touch and a sweet way to round off the evening.

Wine pairing

With the menu we had the wine pairing of six glasses at 2,390 THB per person, and here we were back in more familiar territory with classic wines, including a Wieninger Wiener Gemischter Satz 2023, which worked really well with the bold, spicy and sour flavours. We also shared a bottle of Dei Matiena Toscana Bianco 2023.

The children

Well, we did have the girls with us, and the restaurant had really made an effort, putting together a children's menu at half price so they could be part of the experience. For two fairly fussy children, though, it was a culture shock, and there wasn't a great deal that was to their taste, which honestly we hadn't expected either. They tried matcha, among other things, which actually turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I will just say that the restaurant made a genuine effort for the children, and they even gave us a voucher because of them. But Royd is first and foremost an experience for food-loving adults.

Service

The service was competent, kind and pleasant. The style was a little more formal and stiff than the relaxed fine dining service we often meet in Denmark and the rest of Europe, but never in a way that became too much. You could clearly sense that the team were proud of the place and took the experience very seriously.

Price and level

There were four of us. Two Festive 8-course menus at 4,590 THB per person, two children's menus at half price, wine pairing at 2,390 THB per person, a bottle of Italian white wine, water and a cola. The bill came to approx. 22,845 THB, and after the 4,000 THB voucher we ended up at 18,845 THB. That is not small change, but given the level and the number of courses we were served, it was an evening we don't regret in the slightest.