Hanoi’s restaurant earns second Thai cuisine award

Gusto Thai, a restaurant serving Thai cuisine founded by a Vietnamese owner in Hanoi, has been awarded the Thai SELECT certification for the second time in a row.

Recently, the event of awarding the Thai SELECT certificate to Gusto Thai restaurant (9 Phan Chu Trinh, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi) was honored to have the participation of Mr. Nikorndej Balankura – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Thailand in Vietnam and Ms. Taneeya Foocharoen – Commercial Counselor, Embassy of the Kingdom of Thailand.

Thai SELECT is the certification of the Ministry of Commerce, Royal Government of Thailand, for Thai restaurants in Thailand as well as in other countries around the world with the quality of the food, the taste of the food as well as the style of the service to ensure the right spirit of the golden pagoda’s land.

As a member of the Thai SELECT community since 2017 until now, Gusto Thai restaurant is very honored to be the unit that has received the Thai SELECT certification 2 times in a row.

Gusto Thai founder, Pham Do Lan Phuong shared that the restaurant’s biggest challenge is how to balance maintaining the uniqueness of Thai cuisine while still being suitable for the taste of Vietnamese people. In addition, the fact that Vietnam’s lemon flavor is different from Thailand’s is also a difficulty that makes it difficult for restaurants to find the typical flavor of this country.

According to Phuong, the ideal Thai food must have a balance of all four flavors: sour, spicy, salty and sweet, of which spicy is the most common. However, in order to cater for even diners who can’t eat spicy food, the restaurant has designed the menu with 4 levels of spiciness, with Authentic Thai Taste being the spiciest and Non-Spicy being the lowest.

Sharing about the reason for establishing the restaurant, Phuong said that Thai cuisine has left an indelible mark on her heart, “however, there are no genuine Thai restaurants in Hanoi, even though Ho Chi Minh City has quite a few. This motivated me to open a restaurant serving true Thai cuisine.”