Long Chim in Soho is a new restaurant by the chef David Thompson, the man who changed the face of Thai food in the UK back in the early noughties. You’ll hear this repeated by chefs and food writers whenever Thompson’s name is mentioned, and his work genuinely warrants genuflection. Without him, it is said, there would be no Som Saa, no Kiln, no Smoking Goat, no Speedboat Bar, nor many of those other hip Thai eating spots run by earnest boys called Crispin who serve kipper curry to other earnest boys called Crispin.
Thompson did not by any means invent the concept of Thai people eating – they’ve been managing perfectly well by themselves since the country was created in the 13th century – but he certainly dismantled the UK’s love of gelatinous yet sating pad Thais and of boiled chicken pieces swimming in tinned coconut milk and masquerading as green curry. When he opened Nahm in 2001, Thompson laughed in the face of the predictable, cosy and safe Thai food we’d been used to – comforting sweetness and nuttiness, with gentle, fragrant wafts of coriander and unthreatening heat – and instead favoured scallops, pigeon, Asian celery, white pepper and often alarmingly bold levels of both fresh and dried chillies.
