A new slow-smoked Thai concept is opening within Edinburgh Castle

A new Thai restaurant focused on barbecue-smoke cooking is set to open within Manchester’s award-winning Edinburgh Castle Pub.

Bangkok Diners Club, which will open later this month, will operate a short menu focusing on meats and produce ‘deeply flavoured’ with wood smoke from their in-house smoker.

The concept comes from Chef Ben Humphreys, who combines a twenty-year obsession with Thai cuisine with a new-found passion for low-n-slow cooking.

Together with his wife Bo, who was born and raised in the northeastern Isan region before moving to Bangkok as a teenager, Ben has travelled Thailand extensively, often spending months in the country each year. 

Speaking about the inspiration behind the menu, Ben said: “Barbecue is huge in Thailand, but it’s usually fast and furious over fire. Last year we spent some time in Miami – we had so much mega BBQ, and I found for me the best dishes had Mexican or Korean heat and citrus which cut through the richness of the meat.

 “It got me thinking about how I could do that with Thai flavours and techniques.”

Ben hopes that the slow smoking techniques will bring ‘a new dimension to traditional Thai dishes’ which will include an Ex dairy beef Nam Tok and BBQ pork jowl with burnt tomato Nam Jim Jaew, as well as less recognisable dishes such as ‘Gaeng Khua’, a southern curry of smoked mutton ribs and Thai omelette with smoked mushroom and Nam Prik Pao.

“Bangkok is right in the middle of Thailand, the cuisine is the most complex and diverse there. They draw inspiration from all across the country – vivid with fresh turmeric and depth of shrimp paste from the South, an array of herbs and dry spices from the cooler mountainous North, and the distinctive spicy and sour flavours from the northeast ‘Isan’ region’. That exciting approach is what we’re trying to do here – it’s all rooted in a deep respect for the Thai cooking traditions and an obsessive understanding of how Thai dishes are built; how the flavours are layered and the heat builds – but without the constraints of identifying with a single region.”

“We’ve spent countless nights cooking and celebrating with Bo’s family in Bangkok, and we want to bring that same energy to Manchester, and to the pub,” Partner Danny Collins  added. “We hope to give people something you can’t really get anywhere else, while offering a dining experience that’s fun, communal, and full of flavour.“

Bangkok Diners Club will open at the Edinburgh Castle on Thu 27 Mar. Bookings are open now and can be made using the button below.