Awok on the wild side

David Thompson has taken real Thai food to the world. His next stop: Goa, witha menu that honours complexity

- VIR SANGHVI

If you have eaten Thai food outside of Thailand, at a halfway decent restaurant, then the man you have to thank for how the food is selected, organized, and served is - bizarrely enough - an Australian.

Sydney-born David Thompson is one of the food world's legends, honoured all over the globe, including a Lifetime Achievement Award at Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in 2016, for popularising Thai food and inventing a new kind of Thai menu which has been adopted by good restaurants around the world. Thompson made his reputation in the 1990s with a restaurant called Darley Street Thai in Sydney which was renowned for the excellence of its authentic Thai cuisine. Most Thai food outside of Thailand at the time was restricted to pad Thai, prawn red curry, and tom yum soup.

With Darley Street Thai, Thompson demonstrated to the English-speaking world that Thai was actually one of the world's great cuisines, full of complexity and flavour. Thompson cooked around the world. His food always surprised people who thought they knew what Thai food was. Then in 2001, Thompson opened Nahm at the Halkin Hotel in London and was an immediate sensation. A Michelin star arrived within six months. It was the first time a Thai restaurant anywhere in the world had ever won a Michelin star.