Our favourite restaurants
in Koh Phangan
If you are wondering where to eat Koh Phangan style — away from the tourist menus — these are the three koh phangan restaurants we actually send our guests to. Each has its own character, and each says something true about the island: nothing overhyped, nothing generic. We’ve eaten at all three more times than we can count, in every season, with guests who wanted very different things from their evening — and all three have held up.
Gummy Bear
This is the place we recommend when someone is looking for a real Thai meal — good, generous and affordable. A Thai family, a small dining room, sometimes sharing tables with the kids of the house. The welcome is warm and genuine — here you eat at someone’s home, and you feel it.
The cooking is Thai with a slight Indian twist that makes it unique. The mung bean curry is exceptional. Portions are generous. The bill is light. Exactly what you want when you’re looking to discover Thai cuisine without fuss and without compromise.
Phangan Cove
The Thai spot you choose when you want to take your time. Eiu has been cooking on the island since 2001 — she learned from her mother, makes her own curry pastes, and works only with fresh produce. The restaurant sits by the sea in Srithanu, in a carefully designed setting facing the bay.
The cooking is Thai with roots from Surat Thani — penang curry, red curry duck, pad thai made the old way with tamarind paste. It’s pricier than a street restaurant — the setting and quality of ingredients explain why. The sunsets from the evening tables are among the most beautiful on the island. Open to all, not just resort guests.
Carte Blanche
A French chef, a short menu that changes often, fresh fish. This is where you go when you want something different — precise, considered cooking with real ingredients that have been thought about. No generic dish, no tourist menu.
What the chef proposes that evening is what he decided to cook. The room is small, the atmosphere intimate. In high season, seats go fast. Carte Blanche only opens in the evening — you don’t end up here by accident, you go there to have a proper dinner.
All three sit within a short drive of Villa Altura, which makes it easy to try each one without turning dinner into an expedition. Gummy Bear suits a relaxed, no-fuss evening; Phangan Cove is worth the drive when you want the sunset with your meal; and Carte Blanche is the one to book ahead for when you want a proper occasion. None of them are secret, exactly — just consistently good, which on an island full of restaurants that open for one season and close the next, counts for more than most reviews. If you only have time for one, let the occasion decide: a lazy lunch calls for Gummy Bear, a sunset dinner calls for Phangan Cove, and a night you want to remember calls for Carte Blanche. Book ahead where you can — tables fill up fast in high season, and none of these three are the kind of place you want to discover fully booked.