A Taste of Phuket: Roti Breakfasts, Hokkien Pastries and Royal Thai Tables

Phuket is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, and the best way to understand it is to eat your way through a day: roti and curry at dawn, congee and kaya toast, Hokkien pastries from the old town, royal Thai cooking in a mansion and seafood by the pier.

Most visitors meet Phuket on a sunbed, but the island’s real table is in its old town. Phuket Town grew rich on tin, and the Hokkien Chinese who came to mine and trade it shaped the island’s Peranakan culture; their kitchens are still the heart of its cooking. Breakfast here is a social occasion, pastries are family recipes, and dinner can be eaten in a mansion or beside a fishing pier.

UNESCO lists Phuket as a Creative City of Gastronomy. Its citation speaks of ancient recipes handed down through families and communities, and of the annual Old Town Festival, which brings back traditional know-how in food, crafts and folk art. You taste that continuity everywhere: in a curry recipe kept for seventy years, or a pastry shop that still bakes every morning.

Breakfast in the old town

Start early, as Phuket does. On Chaofa Road, Roti Chaofa cooks rotis to order at a station facing the street, light and crisp, with a rich beef curry. On Thep Krasattri Road, Roti Thaew Nam, described by MICHELIN as seventy years old, fries soft roti in a huge charcoal pan and serves a slightly sweet chicken matsaman fragrant with peanuts. Both are MICHELIN Bib Gourmands in 2026.

For something gentler, Khao Tom Dibuk on Phang-Nga Road lets you build your own bowl: jasmine-rice congee, boiled rice or noodles, then your toppings, with kaya toast from the owner’s mother’s recipe to finish. Sweet tooths queue from 6am at Pathongko Mae Pranee for freshly fried dough sticks, and at A Pong Mae Sunee, off Yaowarat Road, for coconut crêpes made in small charcoal woks.

Pastries to take home

Phuket’s signature gift is tao so, the Hokkien name used in Phuket and Phang Nga for khanom pia: a thin wheat crust over a soft filling, salty, sweet or both in one box. Lhim Po Iam, at the end of Soi Soon Uthit, bakes it fresh every day without preservatives. On Thalang Road, Ar-Kong sells pastries alongside chilli pastes, Phuket shrimp paste, crispy durian and old-fashioned toffee, and the owner is happy to suggest what to try.

Phuket eats breakfast out, and it eats it early: by seven the roti shops of the old town are already full.

Royal Thai and modern Thai

At lunchtime or in the evening, the old town’s most theatrical setting is Blue Elephant Phuket, which serves royal Thai cuisine in a Sino-Portuguese mansion on Krabi Road and runs its own cooking school there. Nearby, One Chun on Thep Krasattri Road is another of the old town’s MICHELIN Bib Gourmands.

On the west coast, Baan Rim Pa serves royal Thai cooking on the cliffs above Kalim Bay, with a deep wine cellar, while SUAY, near Laguna, is chef Tammasak Chootong’s modern Thai kitchen, with a live band twice a week. For MICHELIN-listed fine dining, PRU and Ta Khai are in our restaurants guide.

Seafood by the water

Seafood belongs by the sea. Kan Eang has cooked Thai seafood and Phuket dishes beside the pier on Chalong Bay since 1973, from the day’s catch and family recipes; it is the natural place to end a day on the boats that leave from Chalong.

Our advice

Our advice: eat breakfast in the old town on the morning you visit it, before the heat; the roti shops are busiest, and best, early. Carry small notes for the breakfast shops, buy tao so on your last day so it is fresh for the flight, and book your evening tables, especially on the west coast in high season.