Thao Thao

King Street and the Shape of Margate's Independent Dining

King Street in Margate's Old Town runs close enough to the seafront that the salt air follows you through the door. The street has become one of the more concentrated stretches of independent hospitality in coastal Kent, where small-room restaurants with short menus and specific points of view have gradually replaced the generic offer that dominated the town a decade ago. Thao Thao at number 18 is part of that shift, a Southeast Asian address in a neighbourhood where Angela's has made its name in local seafood and Bottega Caruso holds the Italian corner. The diversity of those offerings matters: Margate's food identity is no longer defined by one register.

In that context, a Southeast Asian kitchen on King Street is less surprising than it might once have seemed. The town's creative migration, well-documented since the mid-2010s, brought with it a taste for precisely the kind of specific, owner-operated dining that characterises this part of the Old Town. Thao Thao fits that pattern.

The Ritual of the Meal: Pacing and Approach

Southeast Asian dining carries its own internal logic, one that operates differently from the European tasting-menu tradition that anchors places like CORE by Clare Smyth in London or Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxford. Rather than a linear progression of courses designed for solo consumption, the table is typically built outward: dishes arrive to share, textures and heat levels are balanced across the spread, and the meal finds its rhythm through the collective choices made at the table rather than a kitchen-controlled sequence.

This is the frame through which a meal at Thao Thao is leading understood. The physical space on King Street is small, as most rooms in this part of Margate are, which reinforces the communal quality of that eating style. Small rooms and shared plates are a natural fit: the proximity of the table, the passing of dishes, the conversation that fills the gaps between courses all belong to the same register. Compared to the more ceremonial pacing of coastal tasting menus you find at hide and fox in Saltwood or the structured progression at L'Enclume in Cartmel, this is a more relaxed contract between kitchen and guest, where the order in which things arrive carries less weight than the cumulative effect of the table.

That informality is not absence of intention. Southeast Asian cooking at a serious level involves layered preparation: fermented pastes, long-cooked stocks, herb combinations that require significant sourcing effort in a coastal English town. The apparent ease of the meal on the plate often conceals considerable work behind it.

Where Thao Thao Sits in Margate's Dining Scene

Margate's food scene has matured into something more differentiated than its coastal-town origins would suggest. Buoy and Oyster holds a reliable position in the seafood tier, while Dory's of Margate and Forts Café represent the more casual end of the independent offer. The middle ground, where considered cooking meets approachable pricing, is where most of the interesting work is happening, and that is broadly where Thao Thao operates.

What distinguishes it from its immediate neighbours is the cuisine category itself. Southeast Asian cooking, whether that means Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian, or a combination of regional influences, draws on a flavour grammar that most Margate kitchens are not working in. The contrast with the modern British and seafood registers that dominate the town is real, and for a visitor building a two-day itinerary, that contrast is worth planning around. The full picture of what Margate offers across its independent restaurants is covered in our full Margate restaurants guide.

For context on how Margate's independent scene compares to more established UK restaurant destinations, the benchmark venues are places like Moor Hall in Aughton, Midsummer House in Cambridge, or Gidleigh Park in Chagford. Those are formally awarded kitchens operating in a different tier and register entirely. What Margate offers is something else: a concentration of independent operators making specific, intentional food without the infrastructure of Michelin-backed institutions. Thao Thao is part of that fabric, not competing with formally awarded rooms but offering something those rooms are unlikely to provide.

The Broader Shift: Asian Cooking Outside London

One of the more significant changes in UK restaurant culture over the past decade has been the dispersal of serious Asian cooking beyond London. Venues like Opheem in Birmingham have demonstrated that rigorous, awarded Asian cooking is not confined to the capital, and at the informal end of the spectrum, Southeast Asian kitchens have appeared in secondary cities and coastal towns where they would have been conspicuous a generation ago.

That dispersal is partly demographic, partly the result of increased ingredient availability through national supply chains, and partly a function of the same creative migration that has brought artists, makers, and independent operators to towns like Margate. For diners accustomed to the depth of Asian restaurant choice in London or New York (where the ambition of a place like Atomix reflects a very different scale of market), a Southeast Asian room in a Kent coastal town occupies a different position. The expectation should be calibrated accordingly: this is neighbourhood-scale cooking in a specific place, not a metropolitan showcase.

Planning a Visit

Thao Thao is at 18 King Street, Margate CT9 1DA, in the Old Town neighbourhood that also contains the highest concentration of independent restaurants and the Turner Contemporary gallery. King Street is walkable from Margate station in under ten minutes. Given the small-room format typical of this stretch of the Old Town, booking ahead is advisable, particularly on weekends when the town draws visitors from London and the wider southeast. Specific booking methods, current hours, and pricing are best confirmed directly with the venue, as these details are subject to change. The restaurant sits naturally into an afternoon-to-evening sequence through the Old Town, with the seafront and gallery providing easy pre-dinner context.