Pranakhon – Bangkok's back alleys, rebuilt on University Place

On University Place, two minutes from Union Square, Pranakhon turns a Greenwich Village storefront into a stretch of Bangkok after dark. The restaurant is designed to resemble an outdoor alley in Bangkok complete with mock power lines, and Pranakhon is also the original name of Bangkok's capital city, the name it carried before the government renamed it Krung Thep Maha Nakhon in 1971. The idea driving the kitchen is the soi, the narrow side alley where much of the city's best cooking happens from a single cart or burner, and the restaurant scales that sprawl down to one address. It holds a Bib Gourmand in the MICHELIN Guide, the distinction kept for cooking of real quality at a fair price, and most nights that reputation turns the room into a full house. Located at 88 University Place just steps away from New York City's bustling Union Square, Pranakhon features a full bar as you enter and towering columns dressed in gold leaf.

01The room and the setting

Street cabling, mock signage and gold-leaf columns run through a two-level dining room built to feel like it has no roof. Ornate metal screens and a classic 1950s-style jukebox complete the scene. The bar sits right at the door, which is practical: on a Friday night the room fills before every table turns over, and a drink while waiting is usually the first order of business. A soi, by the restaurant's own description, is a small alley or side street, and the city of Bangkok is said to hold thousands of them, each with its own narrow repertoire; Pranakhon compresses that sprawl into one kitchen and one room on University Place.

02The cooking

Popular dishes include Crab Fried Rice with ample crab meat on top; Sweet and Savory Skewered Shrimp with sea grape seaweed salad; Roasted Duck with dark brown gravy and pickled ginger, among others. The kitchen runs on the logic of a Bangkok alley rather than a hotel dining room: curries, grilled meats, soups and stir-fries arrive in quick succession, built for a table working through several plates rather than one course each. Seafood carries real weight on the menu — mussels set in a curry custard, soft-shell crab, a whole fish steamed with lime for two to share — alongside the short rib and pork dishes that anchor the curry list.

Insider tip

Book ahead, especially at weekends; the kitchen closes daily between 3:15pm and 4:30pm.

03What to order

The printed menu runs long, split into Appetizer, Curry, Noodle, Over Rice and Special sections built for passing plates around the table rather than ordering one each. The Curry Pancake, a stuffed and folded roti, and the Garden Roll are the standard openers; Hor Mok Hoi Mang Phu, mussels set in a curry custard, and Gai Manow, battered chicken in a lime dressing, tend to follow. For the centre of the table, Short Rib Mussaman, Pranakhon Pad Thai and Khao Yum, a turmeric rice salad, sit alongside Pla Nung Manow, a whole fish steamed with lime. Finish with Mango Sticky Rice or the house I-Tim Sundae.

04Wine and drinks

Sexy cocktails like the Green Forest, made with Chareau aloe liqueur, Salers, basil and lime, are a welcome treat on the drinks list. The kitchen's own Thai café drinks sit alongside them — iced tea, iced coffee, a pink Dang soda — which do just as good a job of cutting through the chilli heat as any cocktail does.

05The neighbourhood

Vibrant foods and affordable prices make Pranakhon the kind of spot suited to an authentic Thai lunch, brunch or dinner, and its position helps: University Place sits inside Greenwich Village, close enough to Union Square that the lunch crowd blurs into shoppers leaving the greenmarket, and close enough to New York University that the dinner tables fill with students as easily as with visitors passing through on their way downtown.

06When to go and booking

Reviewers consistently note it's worth booking a reservation here ahead of time, by a week, especially for weekends, since the room fills quickly once dinner service starts. According to its own website, the restaurant opens 11:30am to 10:15pm Sunday to Thursday and 11:30am to 10:45pm Friday and Saturday, with the kitchen closing daily between 3:15pm and 4:30pm.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.