5 Best Restaurants in Cape Panwa

Baba IKI at Sri Panwa Phuket offers as an authentic and luxurious taste of Japan as you're likely to find in Phuket. It greatly benefits from the hotel’s high quality and attention to detail, as well as its stunning location.

The really impressive feature of Baba IKI is that most of the ingredients are shipped in directly from Japan. This ensures that they really do serve Japanese cuisine, instead of a local adaptation. Naturally, this does nudge the price up a little, but it's absolutely worth it for such extraordinary high quality.

Live India is a lovely little restaurant close to the coast on Cape Panwa, known for its great food, low prices and well-spoken waiters. Notable dishes include the saag mutton, palak paneer and prawn vindaloo. Their selection of naan bread is particularly impressive, though the garlic one is definitely the top choice. The menu features plenty of vegetarian dishes, as well as a few Thai options, and the friendly staff are more than willing to customise each to your needs and desires.

Panwa House is a total throwback: everything in the building is original or has been lovingly restored. The mansion is over 80 years old and everything, right down to the electrical plugs and light switches, is retro.

The food is Thai all the way, with delicious deep-fried crab meat spring rolls for starters and an admirable glass noodle salad. Especially good are the sautéed crab meat with green pepper and the roasted duck in red curry, grapes, cherry tomatoes and pineapple.

Ship Inn is a lovely place to relax and unwind in Ao Yon Beach. The food they serve in the restaurant is just excellent, with good quality and variety. It has western and Thai, including some dishes from the Issan region like somtam and laab moo. Ship Inn is good for families with kids as it’s right on the beach and there are pleasing views even in low season as many yachts drop anchor here. Check out their Friday special menu for special highlights.

The Cove Phuket is an extremely laidback beachfront restaurant and guesthouse located right by the sand of the quaint and quiet Ao Yon Beach. Managed by a friendly backpacker couple, it has a great selection of mostly European food, an impressive drinks menu and superb sunset views.

The bar plays a cool selection of chill-out music and has a great choice of signature cocktails to make this an ideal place for an easy-going day by the sea. The salt and pepper squid and the barbecue peppered Japanese sashimi-grade tuna steak are excellent. The menu also features sandwiches, salads and sourdough wood-fired pizzas.