Thai recipes and kitchen stories from chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Sebby Holmes
I trained as a journalist. Came back to cooking almost immediately after. That probably tells you everything you need to know.
I'd been in kitchens since I was 13, working in restaurants in Oxfordshire because I was good at it and because service made more sense to me than most things. Did a journalism degree, came back to London, started cooking again. Thai food got me at Jane Alty's Begging Bowl in Peckham, where I eventually made sous chef. I wasn't looking for a specialism. It just happened to be the most technically demanding, most obsessive cuisine anyone had put in front of me, and once you're in it properly, that's it.
In 2015 I took the head chef role at the original Smoking Goat on Denmark Street. In 2016 I opened Farang in Highbury with no outside investment, no safety net and a broken pizza oven. The Michelin Bib Gourmand came through and has been there every year since 2019. Giles Coren called it "the perfect restaurant" in The Times. Fay Maschler gave it four stars in the Evening Standard. Time Out gave it five. Whether that was pot luck, hard work or complete stupidity crossbred into a Thai restaurant, I'm still not entirely sure. Probably all three.
Two books followed: Cook Thai and Thai in 7, both published by Kyle Books. A hundred recipes in the first. Seven ingredients per dish in the second. Both still in print. Signed copies at Payst.
Payst came next. My brother Tony and I started it during lockdown because the restaurant was closed and the pastes were sitting there. Eight curry pastes and sauces, all made at Farang, all with Great Taste awards. The reasoning was simple: if you start with a proper paste, the rest of the dish looks after itself. Still true.
This site is the food writing that doesn't fit anywhere else. Recipes from Farang and beyond it, articles about the industry, opinions about Thai food that I'd probably be more diplomatic about in print. If you're new here, the Thai Pantry Guide covers what to actually have in a Thai kitchen and is free when you subscribe. The recipes are there. The press is there if you want to know what other people have said.
Read. Tell me what you think.