Dodging the helicopters in SW11

This review was published in November 2001.

The building that houses Lan Na Thai has been a number of things: a bar that specialised in Sunday roasts among them. Now it houses a decidedly upmarket restaurant, brought to us by a company which runs similar operations in Jakarta and Shanghai.

Without a doubt, it's a fabulous place to while away a long, leisurely meal: with its colonial air - all bamboo furniture, eastern artefacts and palms - it's easy to forget you're in 21st-century Battersea.

It must be gorgeous in summer (if you fade out the raucous noise from the nextdoor heliport): there's a deck overlooking the river furnished with more bamboo and a carved and canopied bed. The staff are of the luxury Asian hotel school: you're made to feel cossetted, welcomed - even treasured.

The food is also splendid: from a complimentary starter of betel leaves to wrap round lemongrass, ginger, lime, coconut, shallots, peanuts and a sweet/sour tamarind sauce - an explosion of flavours - to a palm sugar br°l»e served in a hollowed-out squash, there was much to admire. A beef salad featured silky, tender meat and fireworks of aromatics.

Duck in red curry contained both pea and baby aubergines and had absolutely the correct depth and balance of sweet, spicy and sharp. Only soft-shell crab disappointed slightly: generous quantities of the delicious bug-like crustaceans were a little on the tepid side, their sauce a booby-trap of raw minced garlic that lived with me for some time. Rice was excellent and dips home-made.

The downside? Cost. Prices are among the most expensive for Thai in the capital: £11.25 for the small salad; £15.80 for curry; £12.75 for a humble chicken and cashew nuts. If you're one of the inhabitants of the luxury riverside flats abutting Lan Na Thai, this might be fine. For the rest, it's best kept for a special occasion.

Lan Na Thai
Groveside Court, 2 Lombard Road, Battersea Village, SW11