New York City / Thai
Best Thai Restaurants
in NYC
The real ones are on half a mile of Woodside Avenue. Here is what to order, what it costs, and which days they are shut.
Three deals run in daylight — Fish Cheeks from noon daily, Soothr and Kitchen 79 on weekday lunch.
- 18 verified kitchens
- 5 in half a mile
- a meal from $13
- 6 Michelin Bibs
The short version
- Best in the cityZaab Zaab in Elmhurst — duck larb $28, and the best Isaan cooking in the five boroughs.
- Best valueKhao Kang — two curries over rice for $16.50, three for $17. Go at lunch, before the trays go.
- Best dealFish Cheeks runs Cheeky Hour noon to 5pm, every day, at both locations.
- Don’t waste the tripSriPraPhai is closed Wednesdays and shuts at 8:30pm — and it takes cards now.
- Bring cashChao Thai and Hug Esan take no cards at all.
The best Thai food in NYC is in Queens, and it is not a close call. Within about half a mile of Woodside Avenue between 76th and 85th Streets you have Zaab Zaab, Ayada, Hug Esan, Khao Kang and Chao Thai — five kitchens cooking at a level Manhattan does not match at any price. The honest trade-off is the clock, not the train. It is 30 to 40 minutes on the 7 or the E/F/M/R, and then SriPraPhai shuts at 8:30pm, Hug Esan at 9, Khao Kang in the early evening. Go at lunch or go early. Below: what to order at each, what it actually costs in 2026, which two are cash only, which are shut on which days, and the three deals in this category that survive verification — because most guides invent the rest.
At a glance
What to order and when the kitchen is actually open. Tap a number on the map to place it.
| Restaurant | What to order | Days | Hours | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zaab Zaab | Larb ped udon $28; som tum $16 | Daily | split hours | $$$ |
| Ayada Thai | Som tum talay $24; drunken noodle $19 | Daily | all day | $$$ |
| SriPraPhai | Crispy pork with Chinese broccoli; BYOB | Thu–Tue | closes 8:30pm | $$$ |
| Khao Kang | Rice with two curries $16.50, three $17 | Daily | lunch into early evening | $$$ |
| Chao Thai | Crispy duck salad; sour sausage salad | Daily | 11am–10pm | $$$ |
| Hug Esan | Isaan; whole tilapia; BYOB | Fri–Wed | split hours | $$$ |
| SaRanRom Thai | Lunch $11.95–$12.95 with a free side | Daily | lunch | $$$ |
| Kitchen 79 | Lunch app + entree from $13; khao soi $18 | Daily | lunch to 3:45pm | $$$ |
| Pye Boat Noodle | Boat noodles, beef or pork | Daily | 11:30am–10:15pm | $$$ |
| Lan Larb Chiang Mai | Larb and northern/Isaan plates | Daily | 11:30am–10pm | $$$ |
| Chalong Southern Thai | Southern Thai curries | Daily | 12–10pm/11pm | $$$ |
| Fish Cheeks | Cheeky Hour daily; coconut crab curry $30 | Daily | 12–5pm | $$$ |
| Soothr | Lunch adds free dumplings + soda; khao soi $24 | Mon–Fri | 12–3:30pm | $$$ |
| Thai Diner | Thai disco fries; breakfast from 8:30am | Daily | from 8:30am | $$$ |
| Wayla | Moo sarong; whole fried branzino | Mon–Fri | 5–10pm | $$$ |
| Zaab Zaab Williamsburg | Larb beef $22; som tum $16 | Wed–Sun | from 5:30pm Wed–Thu | $$$ |
| Hungry Thirsty | Kai tod hat-yai; crab curry | Thu–Sun | 5–9pm | $$$ |
| Am Thai Bistro | Reliably open; full menu | Daily | 12–10pm | $$$ |
Map: where these 18 spots are
The cluster on Woodside Ave is the whole story. Everything in Manhattan and Brooklyn is a convenience play against it.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the detail and directions.
Elmhurst and Woodside: where NYC Thai actually is
Five of these sit within half a mile of each other on Woodside Ave. More Queens eating in our Jackson Heights and Flushing guides.
Zaab Zaab
The best Isaan cooking in New York, and the prices now say so. Larb ped udon, the duck larb, is $28 and it is chef Aniwat Ponpitakwong’s hometown dish — order it. Som tum thai $16, som tum pla ra $18, larb beef $22, gaeng om gai $22, nam tok ribeye $25, sticky rice $4. Bib Gourmand and a New York Times Top 100 listing. The honest caveat: this is priced like a Manhattan restaurant now. The cooking is still the best of its kind in the five boroughs; the bargain part is over. The local move: if you want the hot, funky version, order som tum pla ra with the fermented fish sauce rather than asking for it Thai spicy.
zaabzaabnyc.com · See our Jackson Heights happy hours
Ayada Thai
Open on Woodside Avenue since 2008 and still the Elmhurst room you book when there are eight of you. Som tum talay, the seafood papaya salad, is $24; raw shrimp salad $19, drunken noodle from $19, crispy duck panang curry $31. The kitchen will adjust spice on request, which not everywhere on this block will. The honest caveat, twice: it is a big, loud, brightly lit two-room restaurant, not a date, and the Queens-discount era is over here — the whole crispy fish is $48. Note the address: the Chelsea Market outpost runs a different menu, and the Queens menu is labelled Elmhurst-only for a reason.
ayadanyc.com · See our best Asian restaurants in NYC
SriPraPhai
Two facts that will save you a wasted trip. One: it is closed Wednesdays, and that is the single most common failed pilgrimage to Woodside. Two: it is no longer cash only — it takes cards, and still allows BYOB with a corkage fee. Half the internet is still repeating the old version. Order the crispy pork with Chinese broccoli, the pork larb, som tum, roasted duck green curry and the pork leg over rice. The local move: between May and October the large back garden is the entire reason to come. The honest caveat: it closes at 8:30pm. Leave Midtown at 7 and you are eating somewhere else.
sripraphai.com · See our BYOB restaurants in NYC
Khao Kang
The best value on this page and the simplest format: ten dishes a day in steam-table trays, six permanent and four rotating, all cooked on site. You point, they build it over rice. Two items $16.50, three $17. Sopon Kosalanan has run it for over a decade and the garlic black pepper pork is the standout; kang tai pla, the southern sour curry, and the five-spice stewed pork belly are the other regulars. The honest caveat, and it decides your day: it shuts in the early evening and the good trays go first. This is a lunch move. Turn up at 6:30 hoping and you will be choosing from what nobody else wanted.
instagram.com · See our best cheap eats in NYC
Chao Thai
This kitchen does not soften dishes by default, which on this block is saying something. Order the crispy duck salad with cashews, pineapple, ginger and onion, then the sour sausage salad; tom zabb, the hot-and-sour pork offal soup, is the deep cut for anyone who has done this before. It runs to 10pm, one of the later kitchens in Elmhurst. The honest caveat: cash only — Zelle also works, cards do not — about six tables, no reservations, and one person frequently working the register and the floor at once. Bring bills, come as two or three, and do not walk in with six people at 7pm on a Friday.
See our best cheap eats in NYC
Hug Esan
The highest-friction restaurant on this page, and worth every bit of it. Four tables. Cash only. Closed Thursdays. Split hours the rest of the week, noon to 3:30 and 4:30 to 9. BYOB for a small fee, which quietly makes it the cheapest good dinner in Elmhurst. An Isaan specialist since 2017: papaya salads, larb pla, grilled chicken livers, nam khao tod, khao piak sen, grilled pork neck, dill soup, and a whole tilapia you can have grilled or fried. The local move: call ahead for anything larger than a party of two, and plan around it rather than turning up hopeful.
hugesannyc.net · See our BYOB restaurants in NYC
SaRanRom Thai
A Bib Gourmand on the 2025 New York list, in a room with roughly eight tables. Two dishes Michelin flagged on its own menu: miang kha-na at $13.95, dried pork with lime, chilli and peanut, and yum pla duk fu at $16.95, crispy fried catfish with mango salad. Nam ngiao, the northern vermicelli with spicy pork-rib sauce, is $15.95. The cheapest genuinely good thing here is sai krok esan, the grilled fermented pork-and-sticky-rice sausage, at $9.95. Lunch specials run around $11.95 to $12.95 with a free spring roll or fried egg. The honest caveat: every one of those prices comes from a third-party menu listing rather than the restaurant’s own site — treat them as a guide and confirm when you sit down.
See our best lunch in NYC
Kitchen 79 On now
Jackson Heights rather than Elmhurst, and about five minutes from the 7 at 82nd Street. The lunch special is an appetizer plus an entree from $13 on the restaurant’s own online menu — curries, fried rice, sauteed dishes, noodles. A la carte, khao soi kai is $18, Had Yai southern fried chicken $19, papaya salad $12, crying tiger $25. The local move: order through the restaurant’s own site rather than a delivery app and it takes 5% off automatically, no code. The honest caveat, two of them: the kitchen closes at 3:45pm and does not reopen until 5, every single day; and third-party listings print the lunch special at $15+ while the restaurant’s own menu says $13. Ask before you order.
Regional specialists worth a detour
Isaan, northern and southern kitchens that cook one region properly. See also best Asian restaurants in NYC and the best Vietnamese restaurants in NYC.
Pye Boat Noodle
The namesake dish is the order: boat noodles in a dark, spiced broth under meatballs and pork rinds, beef or pork. The local move: there is a bottle of fish sauce on every table alongside the full condiment caddy — you season this yourself rather than asking the kitchen for heat, which is how it is meant to work. Chive pancakes, Sukhothai noodles, crab fried rice and spicy fish balls round it out. The backyard patio is why you come between May and September. The honest verdict: this is a very good neighbourhood noodle shop, not a pilgrimage. If you are already in Astoria, go. Do not cross two boroughs for it when Elmhurst exists.
pyeboatnoodle.com · See our Astoria happy hours
Lan Larb Chiang Mai
Open daily 11:30am to 10pm with no mid-afternoon closure, which is unusual for a regional Thai kitchen and is the main practical argument for it. Centre Street sits between the 6 at Canal and the B/D at Grand, so it is reachable from almost anywhere on the east side. With Somtum Der on Avenue A closed since May 31, 2026, this is now the most convenient Isaan-leaning room below 14th Street. The honest verdict: this is the convenient version, not the definitive one. If you have eaten larb in Elmhurst you will notice the gap. What you are buying back is a forty-minute train ride, and some nights that is a fair trade.
Chalong Southern Thai
Southern Thai specifically — the chilli-heavy, turmeric-forward end of the country, not central Thai and not Isaan — and a Bib Gourmand new to the 2025 list. It sits on 9th Avenue near 51st, which puts genuinely regional Thai cooking inside the theatre-district walk radius, and almost nothing else does. The honest caveat: southern Thai heat is structural, not a setting you can dial down. Order accordingly, and do not bring the friend who thinks pad thai is spicy. Also note it shuts 4 to 5pm every day, which is exactly when you would want a pre-curtain dinner. No lunch special and no happy hour are published.
Manhattan: the ones worth the money
Including the only two verified Thai deals below 14th Street. More downtown eating in best cheap eats in NYC.
Fish Cheeks On now
The widest happy-hour window of any Thai restaurant in Manhattan: Cheeky Hour runs noon to 5pm, every day, at both the NoHo room and the Williamsburg sibling. The kitchen opens at noon, which is why it can start that early. The coconut crab curry at $30 — southern-style, house-made paste, betel leaves, jasmine rice — is the dish most people are here for; the whole fried fish is $38. The honest caveat: the restaurant publishes nothing about what is actually on Cheeky Hour. It is real and it is daily, but walk in and ask for the Cheeky Hour menu rather than turning up with a price in your head.
Soothr On now
Khao soi is the reason, and the prices come straight off the restaurant’s own menu: chicken $24, tofu $23, sai ua with northern sausage $25. Add the crispy pork rind for $3 — that is the correct add-on and it is not optional. Michelin-listed every year from 2021 through 2025. The deal: Monday to Friday lunch throws in free fried vegetable dumplings or pork meatballs plus a soda with any entree or noodle dish. The honest caveat, and it is a real trap: the posted hours end lunch at 3:30pm while the printed lunch menu says 3:45pm. If the special is the point, be seated by 3. The kitchen then shuts until 5.
soothrnyc.com · See our East Village happy hours
Thai Diner
The only place on this page serving Thai breakfast, and that is the actual reason to know about it: doors at 8:30am on weekdays and 10am at weekends. Order the Thai disco fries, crinkle-cut under massaman curry, because nobody else is making them. Bib Gourmand on the 2025 list, and one of The Infatuation’s highest-rated restaurants in the city. To be clear about the lineage: this is from the Uncle Boons team, but Uncle Boons itself closed permanently in 2020 and is not coming back. This is the successor, not a branch. The honest caveat: it is perpetually mobbed. There is no phone; book on Resy or accept the weekend walk-in line, which is grim.
Wayla
The date option on this page, and it knows it. The back patio — rubber plants, oversized wicker, outdoor rugs — is one of the better outdoor rooms downtown and it is what you are paying for as much as the cooking, which is genuinely good. Order the moo sarong, pork meatballs wrapped in crispy noodle, then the sai oua sausage, larb pla tod (whole fried branzino), kua kling kung and yum nam khao tod. The honest caveat: dinner only Monday to Friday, 5 to 10pm; weekends add a midday service. And this is a night out that happens to serve Thai food rather than a Thai restaurant in the Elmhurst sense. Both are fine things to want.
waylanyc.com · See our Lower East Side happy hours
Brooklyn
Thin but improving. Ugly Baby reopens at 364 Grand St in Williamsburg on August 27, 2026 — we will add it once we have eaten there. Meanwhile see Williamsburg happy hours.
Zaab Zaab Williamsburg
The Williamsburg sibling of the Elmhurst original, running the same Isaan spine at the same prices: larb beef $22, som tum thai $16, som tum pla ra $18, gaeng om gai $22, sticky rice $4. It is the closest Brooklyn gets to Elmhurst-grade cooking without getting on the 7. Minutes from the L at Bedford and the G at Metropolitan. Naming note: it opened as Zaab Zaab Talay, the seafood-leaning sister; the company now lists it simply as Zaab Zaab Williamsburg, so if you see both names they are one restaurant. The honest caveat: closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and dinner-only from 5:30pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Check the day before you build a night around it.
zaabzaabnyc.com · See our Williamsburg happy hours
Hungry Thirsty
It occupies 407 Smith Street, the exact room Ugly Baby left at the end of 2024, and it cooks across regions rather than committing to one: kai tod hat-yai southern fried chicken, chu chee kai pu crab curry, kang ped nuer beef curry, pla tod nam pla fried branzino, pork leg. Michelin-listed. The honest caveat, and it is the whole planning problem: dinner only, 5 to 9pm, closed Monday through Wednesday. Sixteen service hours a week. If you want to eat here you have to schedule it, and the Ugly Baby ghost means other people already are. Book on Resy or OpenTable; a Saturday walk-in is a gamble in a room this small.
Am Thai Bistro
Eighteen-plus years on Church Avenue, right at the B/Q station and a block from the F/G, open every day noon to 10pm. That reliability is the entire argument — in a stretch of Brooklyn where the good Thai kitchens keep split hours and close two days a week, this one is simply always there, with dine-in, takeout, delivery and catering. The honest verdict: it is the dependable local, not a reason to cross the borough. Judge it against your delivery radius rather than against Elmhurst and you will be happy with it. No lunch special and no happy hour are published on its own site.
amthaibistro.com · See our Park Slope happy hours
Thai food in NYC: FAQ
Where is the best Thai food in NYC?
Elmhurst and Woodside in Queens. Zaab Zaab on Woodside Avenue is the best Isaan cooking in the city and a New York Times Top 100 restaurant; Ayada, Hug Esan, Khao Kang and Chao Thai are all within about half a mile of it. Manhattan’s best are Thai Diner, Fish Cheeks, Soothr and Chalong, but none of them is cooking at the Elmhurst level.
Which NYC Thai restaurants are cash only?
Chao Thai in Elmhurst, which also takes Zelle but no cards, and Hug Esan, also in Elmhurst. Both are six-table-or-smaller rooms. SriPraPhai in Woodside is often listed as cash only and that is out of date – it takes cards now, and still allows BYOB with a corkage fee.
Do any NYC Thai restaurants have a happy hour?
Three deals survive verification. Fish Cheeks runs Cheeky Hour noon to 5pm daily at both its NoHo and Williamsburg rooms, though it does not publish what is on it – ask for the menu. Soothr’s Monday-to-Friday lunch adds free dumplings or pork meatballs plus a soda to any entree. Kitchen 79 in Jackson Heights does an appetizer plus entree from $13 at lunch. Most other Thai happy hours you will read about online are not real.
Does asking for ’Thai spicy’ work?
Not really. At the regional places the heat is built into the dish rather than stirred in at the end, so it is already there. The real lever is what you order: at Zaab Zaab, som tum pla ra with fermented fish sauce is the hot, funky version. Chao Thai and Chalong do not soften dishes by default at all.
Which Thai restaurants in NYC are closed on which days?
SriPraPhai is closed Wednesdays, which is the most common wasted trip in this guide. Hug Esan is closed Thursdays. Zaab Zaab Williamsburg is closed Mondays and Tuesdays and dinner-only Wednesday and Thursday. Hungry Thirsty in Carroll Gardens opens only Thursday to Sunday, 5 to 9pm. Several kitchens also close between roughly 3:30 and 5pm daily, including Zaab Zaab, Soothr, Kitchen 79 and Chalong.
Last updated: August 2026. Prices and hours change – confirm with the venue before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
