Koh Samui Restaurants

Prior to the millennium, Koh Samui boasted only one ATM machine, and you had to go to Nathon to get to that. Today, they seem to be on every street corner, and the same sort of thing can be said about Koh Samui restaurants and the quality and variety of cuisine on offer.
Today Koh Samui probably has a bigger collection of fine dining restaurants per square metre than anywhere else in the world. Award winning international chefs are queuing to join their colleagues who are already working on Koh Samui.

There are literally hundreds of quality restaurants on Koh Samui, but the biggest problem is that few of them can be seen if you are strolling on the road. Yes, there are many very attractive looking restaurants along Chaweng Beach Road, and all of them are competing furiously with each other for your custom. Sadly, the quality of the cuisine and service of these roadside restaurants don't often match their visual appeal, and you'll need to know where to look to find the best of what Koh Samui has to offer.

Koh Samui Restaurants Guide

One excellent restaurants guide is 'The Samui Dining Guide', which offers unbiased reviews of around 40 of the best eateries on Koh Samui and describes the restaurant location and how to get there. The slim reddish booklet is a free publication and available in most Koh Samui hotels, Samui / Bangkok airport and on stands around the island.

Healthly Dining on Koh Samui

Being an island Koh Samui offers a big range of seafood, often on display outside the restaurant. However, it's not advisable to dine at one of these: how long the seafood has been put out on display and then returned to the freezer again is anybody's guess. Plus they are constantly picking up dust and dirt from the road. The best restaurants do not display their wares – they're still in the fridge after having been bought fresh that morning.

Koh Samui Resort Restaurants

With a few exceptions, all the quality restaurants on Koh Samui are attached to one or another of Koh Samui's resorts. It's become a trend in the last few years for resorts to create a signature restaurant, usually with its own character and styling that's independent of the host resort. These are very much open to the general public, and many of them have delightful beach settings as well as high quality cuisine.

Thai Food Restaurants and Stalls

One of the best (and cheapest) Thai food experiences comes with the noodle stalls that you'll see everywhere. They seem to pop up at night, often on the forecourts of shops that have closed for the day. They'll put together a tasty and nourishing bowl of noodle soup and are hugely popular with the Thai locals when it comes to an evening meal. And there's nothing unhealthy or unhygienic about them - the best ones soon attract favour and are busy every night, often through to the small hours of the morning.
But for the ultimate experience of Thai style eating, take a trip to Nathon's night food market. Nathon is on the west coast and facing the sunset, so drop in there by the ferry pier at around six o'clock. All the stalls are mobile and are pushed or towed there starting at around 4:00 pm. They form a ring around the large open space, with the folding tables and plastic stools laid out in the middle. There's just about everything edible here, and it's perfectly OK if you sit at one stall and order bits and pieces from other stalls to add to this. And keep your eyes out for the unique sight of entire Thai families arriving on one motorbike for their evening meal, all wearing their nightwear and ready for bed!