Chalong Southern Thai – Surat Thani's flavours land in Hell's Kitchen

Chalong Southern Thai occupies a storefront on Ninth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen, two blocks from the Theater District, where chef Nate Limwong cooks the food of her native Surat Thani rather than the central-Thai repertoire that fills most of the avenue. The restaurant opened shop in January 2023 on Ninth Avenue, a welcome addition to the neighbourhood's crowded Thai food scene. Limwong runs the kitchen with three partners, Booky Rattanapokasatit, Pattamon "CC" Kerdrojwongkul and JR Raksasuwan, former colleagues from Fish Cheeks and the Michelin-starred Soothr who struck out together to build what they call New York's first restaurant dedicated specifically to the cuisine of Thailand's deep south. The idea has been recognised: in 2025 Chalong received a Bib Gourmand designation from the MICHELIN Guide, a notable result for a restaurant barely two years old on a street already thick with Thai kitchens. It holds one MICHELIN Bib Gourmand.

01The room and the setting

The space once held Blue Ribbon Chicken; co-owner CC Kerdrojwongkul redesigned it to feel like a small Thai resort set down in Midtown, with wicker furniture, a wood-panelled bar and plants threaded through the dining room, built so the width of Ninth Avenue outside disappears once the door closes. Rattan light fixtures hang over the tables in a room sized for two or for a group splitting plates before a show.

At opening the team served coconut water straight from the branded fruit alongside mocktails while their liquor licence came through, part of a deliberate effort to make the room feel transported rather than transactional from the first sip.

02The chef

Chef Nate Limwong was born in Surat Thani, a province rich in southern Thai cuisine and known for its fresh seafood, and has worked across three continents, mastering French and Chinese cooking alongside her own regional tradition before returning to cook the food she grew up with. Before Chalong she had been head chef at some of the NYC's notable Thai restaurants, including Soothr, Fish Cheeks and Tong.

Insider tip

Open daily for lunch and dinner with a short afternoon break; reservations recommended.

She met co-owner Booky Rattanapokasatit seven years earlier at Fish Cheeks in Soho, then moved with him to the Michelin-starred Soothr in Union Square, where the two were joined by CC Kerdrojwongkul and JR Raksasuwan; the four eventually decided to open a restaurant built entirely around the south rather than folding regional dishes into a general Thai menu. Southern Thai cooking is less familiar to most New Yorkers than the central Thai dishes that dominate most menus around the city, and Chalong is one of the few places in NYC doing it seriously.

03The cooking

The menu centres on the specialities of the south: golae (skewered, curry-rubbed grilled fish or shrimp), sator, the pungent stink bean used in curries with shrimp and pork, and a run of curries built on house-made pastes rather than central Thai green or red curry formulas. Dishes marked for spice and gluten-free options run through every section, a nod to a region where chillies, turmeric and fresh seafood do most of the talking.

Signature plates include a grilled turmeric sea bass wrapped in banana leaf in the style of Surat Thani's Hor Mok, a southern take on tom yum made with Chilean sea bass, and a Phuket-style stewed pork belly, Moo Hong, braised for six hours in soy wine and Thai spices.

04What to order

Start with Jeeb Pu, a steamed dumpling of crab, shrimp and pork with a southern-style dipping sauce ($19), or Baerng Golae, coconut-crisp grilled shrimp in the region's famous curry paste ($18). The Lumpu Salad, fresh dry scallops with chili paste, fried shallots and pea shoots, is listed as limited availability ($19).

For mains, the Crab Curry pairs jumbo lump crab meat with crispy soft-shell crab in coconut curry ($32), Sator Goong brings shrimp and ground pork together with stinky beans in an aromatic southern paste ($29), and the Goat Curry is a six-hour braise of New Zealand goat served with grilled roti ($32). Mee Pum Riang, the restaurant's southern-style pad Thai in coconut curry cream, and the Squid Ink Fried Rice with colossal crab meat ($29) are both built to be shared.

05Wine and drinks

Chalong's cocktail list, the Long Dtai series, was built with beverage director Cici Pratamon around a trip through southern Thailand: each drink is named for a place and its story, from the pirates of Tarutao in Satun to the rambutan groves of Surat Thani, the dive sites of Similan and the Krabi beach made famous by the film "The Beach".

The wine list runs from a Bedell Cellars rosé from the North Fork of Long Island to a Capiaux Cellars Chimera Pinot Noir from the Russian River, with a Dom Pérignon Brut on hand for the kind of evening the restaurant's own branding calls a celebration — chalong means exactly that in Thai.

06The neighbourhood

Ninth Avenue between West 50th and 51st Streets sits deep in Hell's Kitchen's Thai restaurant corridor, close enough to the Theater District that Chalong's shared-plates format and quick lunch service suit both a pre-curtain dinner and a long weekend table. The E or C train stop at 50th Street leaves the restaurant only a block's walk away.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.