Speedboat Bar brings the noise, speed and heat of Bangkok’s Chinatown to a corner of Soho, and it’s never once let us down.
Speedboat Bar is the JKS Restaurants group’s tribute to Yaowarat Road, the beating heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown, where street food stalls and river speedboat racing culture collide. Real Thai racing boats hang from the ceiling, TVs play Thai sport, and the laminated numbered menus and metal canteen tables make it feel closer to a Bangkok institution than a Soho restaurant.
The kitchen is led by chef-patron Luke Farrell, who spent time cooking and sourcing ingredients in Bangkok before opening Speedboat Bar on Rupert Street in 2022. The food leans Thai-Chinese, sweeter, spicier and heartier than the more refined central-Thai cooking found elsewhere in London, and it’s built the kind of reputation that gets a place a second site, which opened inside Electric House in Notting Hill in 2025.
Speedboat Bar: the full review
The food
We keep coming back for the pad kra pao, listed on the menu as minced beef with holy basil, a fiery, garlicky stir-fry piled with whole bird’s eye chillies and finished with a fried egg and a shard of crispy pork skin on the side. It’s a simple-sounding dish that’s genuinely hard to get right, and Speedboat’s version is punchy enough to make you order it again before you’ve finished the first plate.
The curries are worth ordering alongside it, we’ve had a turmeric-gold pork curry stacked with rib and crispy belly, curry leaf threaded through the sauce, rich without being heavy. The menu shifts with what’s good that week, so don’t be surprised if the exact dish isn’t there next time, just order whatever pork curry is on offer.
The drinks
Cocktails come served in branded steins and short glasses rather than anything fussy, in keeping with the room. Order whatever’s on the current list, sharp, fruity and built to cut through the chilli heat, alongside Thai beer if you want something simpler.
The look
Yellow walls, a golden shrine over the door, racing boat memorabilia and a wall of TVs showing Thai sport, Speedboat Bar doesn’t do quiet or minimal. It’s loud, packed most nights, and genuinely buzzy in a way that’s hard to fake, closer to the bustling restaurants you’d find in Bangkok itself than most Soho dining rooms, minus the humid heat (this summer notwithstanding).
The London x London Take
We’ve been to Speedboat Bar several times now and it’s never once let us down, the dishes are authentic and packed with flavour, the room is buzzy and friendly, and it’s one of the few places in London that genuinely captures what eating out in Bangkok feels like rather than a polished, toned-down version of it.
Come hungry, order more than you think you need, and don’t expect a quiet night, this is a place to go with a group rather than for a quiet catch-up. Walk-ins are accepted, but book ahead if you want a table at a reasonable hour.
Rating: 4/5
Speedboat Bar: need to know
- Address: 30 Rupert Street, Soho, London W1D 6DL
- Nearest station: Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square
- Price: ££
- Opening hours: Monday to Thursday 12pm–12am, Friday and Saturday 12pm–1am, Sunday 12pm–11pm (kitchen closes earlier)
- Booking: Via Speedboat Bar’s website, walk-ins also accepted
- Website: speedboatbar.co.uk
“A genuinely authentic, buzzy slice of Bangkok's Chinatown in Soho, punchy Thai-Chinese food that's never let us down across several visits.”
