Eight years ago, Seb Holmes’ Farang was the hot new kid on the block. London has a way of chewing up and spitting out restaurants but Farang has survived the rat race, settling into life as a much-loved Highbury stalwart. It’s no less busy for its age - the restaurant is buzzy and convivial on a Friday evening, and a neat little corner spot on Blackstock Road means the sunlight drifts in on two angles, so the whole room feels pleasantly bathed in light and shade.
The word farang is used in Thailand to describe white foreigners (with no malice or intent to offend, it must be said). It seems Seb is acutely aware of his place within the cultural superstructure, but perhaps ironically, Farang remains stubbornly dedicated to authenticity. Even the opening hours of the restaurant are set up around the availability of Thai ingredients, which arrive via plane from Bangkok once a week.
Farang runs an a la carte but if you want to be chaperoned, the feasting menu is a good way to go. For £60 a head you get a quite astonishing amount of food, guaranteeing a delicious lunch the next day and saving you the ignominy of a sad meal deal sarnie. A lot of work goes into the early snacks, playing off multidimensional flavours - sweet, salty, prickling chilli, a jab of sour tamarind, soothing coconut, the funk of a fish sauce caramel. A heaped pile of crab, trout roe, toasted peanuts, chilli, lime and more arrives on a betel leaf, which we gather up and shove into our mouths. Some dishes are delicious via blunt force, others are more restrained, like a salad of cured prawn with green mango and toasted cashew. Everything is delicious.
Try and save some room for fireworks at the end too - a punchy stir fry of smoked pork and seasonal greens, and a fishcake in a bath of glorious lime-spiked green curry. There’s not much in the way of desserts, only homemade ice creams, but we’d be stunned if you made it that far. Farang is a wild ride in every good way - long may this white foreigner continue.