27 Great Restaurants in Lamai

Kob Restaurant is a rather large open-air venue with a few tables and 8 wooden salas set on the side of a children-friendly swimming pool (maximum depth is 1.2 metres). It's a nice place to relax and enjoy excellent traditional Thai cuisine. 

Kob Restaurant’s Thai chef prepares all the classics of Thai cuisine (the crab curry is a must-try), and local desserts (mango with sticky rice) at affordable prices. With a relaxing atmosphere, excellent service, and delicious food, this is a highly recommended restaurant if you come by Lamai.

Saffron lies in the northern area of Lamai, on the grounds of the majestic Banyan Tree Samui. This outstanding restaurant is set at the top of a hill, overlooking the Andaman Sea and the northeastern coast of Koh Samui.

Saffron has a refined atmosphere and décor, impeccable and discreet service and, above all, delicious Thai food. The fact that many guests residing in other resorts come – sometimes more than once during their stay – to indulge at Saffron tells a lot about the popularity of this restaurant.

Baobab Restaurant is one of the most popular venues in the southern part of Lamai Beach. It's also a beach club, with plenty of sun loungers installed on the sand. There's an impressive menu apt to satisfy the most demanding customers, including Thai, French and western dishes, salads of the day, smoothies, shakes, café latte and espresso.

Beach Republic incorporates an ambitious beachside location with poolside dining, chilled-out music, very modern design, and pioneering tapas and mains menus. Try the Republic masaman lamb shank or the raw diced tuna steak, while hanging around on huge outdoors sofas.

The scene at Beach Republic is decidedly cool as it regularly hosts international DJs and movie nights. You can find it on the northern end of Lamai Beach, where you can relax with excellent views of the Andaman Sea.

No Stress is, as the name suggests, a relaxing place to chill out on Lamai Beach. This restaurant has everything you need for a relaxing day on the beach. including sun loungers, umbrellas, free Wi-Fi and a great selection of food and beverages. Food is best enjoyed in the small beach shack-style restaurant part of No Stress. 

The choices are pretty much what you would expect of a French-owned eatery in Thailand, with a choice of baguette sandwiches, mussel dishes, and well-known Thai favourites like pad Thai (stir-fried noodles) som tam (papaya salad), and pineapple fried rice. Snacks, salads, pasta dishes, homemade ice cream, and grilled meat and fish are also available, all for impressively low prices.

The Bistro at Rocky's Boutique Resort is one of the most beautiful restaurants on Koh Samui. Its subtle lighting arrangements are due to silk hanging lanterns, which provide a uniform touch throughout the restaurant. 

Located just south of the Grandmother and Grandfather rocks, this 60-seater restaurant is open-sided and flanks a free-form swimming pool overlooking a rocky beach. Its Thai chef has had extensive international experience, so you'll find a great choice of Thai and worldwide dishes. Entertainment comes in the form of a Filipino singer and Thai traditional dancers.

Live India is an excellent restaurant in Lamai that serves no less than 140 subcontinental dishes. This restaurant keeps things simple, with several discreet pictures, 6 wall fans, and a TV. The service is unfailingly polite and brisk. With only 8 tables, this medium-sized restaurant has had a huge reputation since its opening in 1995. It's one of the finest Indian restaurants on the island. 

Sala Thai Restaurant serves an impressive selection of high-quality Thai cuisine at affordable prices. It is a big hit with visitors to Koh Samui and even quite popular with the locals. The restaurant is in a charming, traditionally Thai-style building. You can enjoy the mild evening breeze with your dinner. 

The table settings and surroundings give the impression of a rather high-class establishment, while the low prices keep the place busy. The friendly atmosphere is further enhanced by the polite and helpful staff.

Sabienglae Restaurant is an outstanding local Thai eatery on Lamai Beach. It serves excellent cuisine in an easy-going setting right by the beach, at low prices too. The restaurant occupies a rough-and-ready building, with a palm thatch roof supported by bare concrete pillars. 

At the far end is a wooden deck with steps leading down to the beach. Despite these simple surroundings and brisk service, Sabienglae Restaurant is one of the top-rated places to eat in Lamai. 

Röstiland Koh Samui is a popular Swiss/Thai restaurant in the northern area of Lamai, in Soi Flower Paradise. Open since 1993, this is a neat and clean bamboo and thatch restaurant with wooden furnishing and a beautiful sea view. 

As for food, Röstiland serves Thai and Swiss favourites. All dishes are prepared with quality ingredients and served in generous portions. Green curry chicken and cordon bleu with rösti (Swiss-style fried potatoes) are must-try dishes. 

26th Degree Restaurant is the signature restaurant of The Kala Samui, a charming boutique resort on Koh Samui’s east coast. Located 1 floor below the hotel’s lobby/reception, the restaurant is perfectly in line with the resort’s stylish décor and tranquil, feel-good holiday atmosphere. 

26th Degree Restaurant serves a classic choice of Thai and international favourites, all prepared with fresh and premium ingredients. 

Asador BBQ is notable for its dramatic pavement-side barbecue grill, along with its impressive display of fresh seafood on ice. Prices are perhaps a little higher than the average; seafood is charged per 100g (for any preparation). Thanks to its location in central Lamai, Asador BBQ is very popular and frequently busy. 

Bikini Bar BQ is a cool beachfront restaurant in the central part of Lamai Beach. The bar features 3 distinct areas, including an indoor section, a terrace overlooking Lamai Bay, and a dining section right on the beach. 

Bikini Bar BQ sums up the diversification of Koh Samui in the variety of dishes it serves. You’ll find all the classic Thai and seafood favourites, but also original dishes such as Jamaican jerk spareribs, beef burrito, and fish & chips, to name just a few. The quality of the food, cool location and atmosphere of the venue, as well as happy hour (4 pm to 7 pm), help keep Bikini Bar BQ pretty busy every night.

Despite the almost comical name, Dr Frogs takes its cuisine very seriously and has won several awards. Modern Italian food is served at this cliff-side restaurant. Dishes like spaghetti tom yam seafood and pan-fried Atlantic salmon with honey soy reduction have proven popular with expats and visitors.

The restaurant complements its agreeable atmosphere with DJs and live music. With an olive-green décor and sweeping marine vistas, Dr Frogs is a trendy place to be in Koh Samui. 

Bondi Aussie Bar & Grill is a popular chain restaurant in Thailand. Its Lamai outlet occupies a long, 1-storey building that blends Thai (thatch roof) and contemporary styles (modern furnishing and lighting). 

This is a cool and lively joint at which you can follow premier league football or other live sports on their flat-screen TVs. You can enjoy energetic live music performed by a local band on Fridays from 10 pm until late. Bondi Aussie Bar & Grill is diagonally opposite the busy Lamai Central Plaza, where you can find beer bars and an outdoor Thai boxing ring. 

The Butcher is a stylish bistro steakhouse set in an open-sided, 1-storey building in central Lamai. Opened in 2014, it has something of a revisited Chicago-style American restaurant, with dark red brick walls, wooden furnishing, and many black and white photos hanging all around the venue.

The menu is dedicated to carnivores, and the quality of the meat – Australian and American beef, NZ lamb, and Kobe Wagyu beef – is top-notch. Seafood lovers will also enjoy dining at The Butcher as its menu includes lobster, jumbo prawn, and barracuda steak. As in most French-run venues, the wine list harbours a good choice of New and Old World labels.

Erik's Swedish Restaurant is justifiably popular with the many Scandinavian visitors in Lamai. It has daily specials and suggestions written up on blackboards, plenty of dining space, an open front giving out onto the Main Street and flat-screen TVs for sports. 

Genuine Swedish cuisine in generous portions makes Erik's Swedish Restaurant attractive. This is the place to go when you want a break from English or Asian food in Koh Samui.

Krua Chao Baan is a large beachside seafood restaurant on Koh Samui’s ring road, just south of Lamai. It has 2 sections: one rustic with roughly hewn wooden furniture and basic seats and the other slightly more elegant with rattan furniture and a little more colour to it. This simple venue is a great place for enjoying traditional Thai dishes with idyllic views of the Andaman Sea.

Lamai Central Plaza is, as its name implies, right in the middle of Koh Samui's resort town of Lamai. It is a 2,000-square-metre plaza hosting a dozen beer bars with a Thai boxing ring in the centre. You can find a popular street food court, with several bars and restaurants on its sides.

Lamai Central Plaza usually gets lively after sunset when things cool down a bit. It has a bustling ambience rocked by loud music played in the bars. The clientele is quite hard to define as the type of people frequenting the plaza changes throughout the evening, from families with children between 6 pm and  8 pm to hardcore revellers after 11 pm.

Lamai Centre is a U-shaped modern plaza hosting a wide range of businesses, including restaurants, massage parlours, tattoo studios,  and clothing and jewellery stores. The central lane of Lamai Centre has lounge-like comfortable sofas, chairs and tables offering a cool people-watching spot, and a pond with Japanese koi fish.

Outback Bar & Grill is a fun venue on Lamai Beach Road. It's styled like an outback saloon without walls, with lots of bar stools for those looking to unwind and watch the world go by. It also has TVs airing live sports matches throughout the day. 

If you're up for a filling meal, Outback Bar & Grill offers classic steaks, burgers, grilled lamb chops, meat pies, and chicken parmigiana. There's also a good range of Australian and Thai beers on the menu.

Shamrock Irish Pub has dominated Lamai's dining and nightlife scene since 2005. It has 2 distinct areas: an outdoor terrace and a typical pub interior. It also offers pretty feisty live music around 5 times a week (in high season) on a centrally located stage. The atmosphere is fairly peaceful in the early evening but usually gets a lot livelier when the band starts up. 

Shamrock Irish Pub provides sports lovers with 4 separate satellite feeds on 6 large TVs. The place is big enough to absorb them all without descending into audio mayhem. If you’re after a game of pool, the pub has genuine slate pool tables. Expect a good welcome and happy faces in this family-friendly joint.

Thai Table in Lamai, established in November 2013, is the second branch to open after Chaweng in 1994. The restaurant is part of a small dining plaza on Lamai Main Street. 

A fish display counter on the front side of the restaurant presents the catch of the day, ready to be prepared according to customers’ tastes. Thai Table is quite cosmopolitan as dishes on offer range from Thai, Chinese and BBQ to German and Italian. 

The Patio is one of Lamai's fanciest beachfront restaurants. Across its large open space are many beautiful water features, resulting in a relaxing dining ambience. 

The Patio's reasonably priced menu includes European, Thai and seafood dishes, all of which are fantastic and look as good as they taste. Recommended dishes include the black ink fettuccine with smoked chicken breast, asparagus and bacon in a spicy tomato sauce, and the Szechuan duck with sea scallops.

Tropicana is a genuine Italian restaurant and pizzeria in central Lamai. Run by a trio of Italian friends – Diego, Lele and Karl – it has a spotless contemporary-style wooden décor and furnishing, along with a trattoria-style ambience. Two large-screen TVs broadcast major sports events (without sound), and a soft jazz musical background allows a relaxing time while dining.

You will find all the standard dishes that made Italian food famous around the world, including bruschetta, pasta, grilled meat, tiramisu and panna cotta. Tropicana’s chef uses the freshest local ingredients and many imported ones to deliver succulent dishes.

Will Wait at Lamai is an offspring of Chaweng's restaurant and bakery. It serves freshly baked goodies, Thai and western dishes, and fresh salads. The restaurant's quasi-backpacker ambience is enhanced by TVs showing English-language sports and movies.

The Cliff Bar & Grill's hillside location between Chaweng and Lamai affords it some of the best sea views on Koh Samui. The award-winning restaurant has separate restaurant and bar areas, as well as an open-air terrace overlooking Silver Bay to the south.

It serves excellent Mediterranean cuisine under the supervision of the experienced Italian Chef Sergio Martelli, who has worked in many top restaurants around the world before settling in Koh Samui. Dishes like gambas al pil pil (Portuguese piri piri prawns), cozze al vino bianco (NZ mussels in creamy white wine sauce) and Thai salsa chicken breast come in large hearty portions. Pair your meal with one of many reasonably priced New World wines on offer. Visit in the late afternoon to unwind with tapas and a cocktail while listening to laidback Latino tunes at the bar.