Melbourne’s hit Thai restaurant Soi 38 played hard to get for many years, tucked in the depths of a multistorey carpark and open only at lunch. Then the queues came, and it was much easier to spot which laneway led you to the Bangkok street-food people raved about. With its new home, Soi has regained a little of its elusiveness, which is surprising, given that it’s part of a shiny overhaul of the former Tivoli Arcade.
To find Soi 38, you’ll go down a laneway and through a hard-to-find door which is, fittingly, opposite a carpark. Once inside, it feels just like a canteen. The new space seats 240 people, a step up from the 160 of the last site and a head-spinning evolution for a business that started as a pop-up selling one dish: boat noodles, a robust Bangkok dish then mostly unknown in Melbourne.
“We couldn’t afford a fridge back then. We had to use a big esky!” says co-owner Top Piyaphanee. From that one dish, Soi opened in a Little Collins Street carpark for lunchtime noodles, then added grilled items, salads and raw dishes for dinner, and took over a second space in the carpark.
“It’s breathtaking. I didn’t know it was going to get to this one day,” says Piyaphanee. After 10 years among boomgates and ticket machines, he and wife Tang Piyaphanee had to find a new site last year when the carpark was listed for sale.
Opening at its new Bourke Street home on January 2, the new Soi 38 carries plenty of its history. Grey floors and exposed ceilings are offse.
