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I started cooking Thai food professionally in my early twenties, first at the Begging Bowl under Jane Alty, then as head chef at the original Smoking Goat on Denmark Street. In 2016 I opened Farang in North London with no outside investment and a broken pizza oven. It’s been recognised with a Michelin Bib Gourmand every year since 2019.

I’ve written two cookbooks, Cook Thai and Thai in 7, and with my brother Tony I co-founded Payst, a range of fresh curry pastes and sauces made at Farang. All eight pastes have won Great Taste awards, and our Hung Lay curry paste won a Golden Fork in 2026.

This site is where I put the food writing, recipes, and opinions that don't fit anywhere else.

"Sebby Holmes has put a different complexion on a cuisine too often mired in sweetness and batter... worth dirtying your nails and wrecking your shirt for" (Fay Maschler, London Evening Standard)

"I have found the perfect restaurant for me and it's called Farang" (Giles Coren, The Times)

"Sebby Holmes has married those classic scents and spices with a hefty thwack of smoke... a six-napkin, two-finger-bowl endeavor - oh the fun." (Lisa Markwell, The Independent)

"Damn, I'd happily eat at this baby every day... a genuinely modern Thai restaurant, with a chef who really knows his stuff." (Tom Parker Bowles, The Daily Mail)

As seen in

Cook Thai

My first book. A hundred recipes covering the full range of Thai cooking, from curry pastes to salads, street food to sharing plates. Published by Kyle Books. Signed copies available at:

www.payst.co.uk

Thai in 7

Proper Thai food with seven ingredients or fewer per dish. No compromise on flavour, just a shorter shopping list. Published by Kyle Books. Signed copies available at:

www.payst.co.uk

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