It’s been one year since we first visited Baan Lao Fine Thai Cuisine to celebrate our anniversary with their unique Thai Afternoon Tea. This year, when deciding where to celebrate our 14th anniversary, we ultimately landed back on Baan Lao. This time, however, we were excited to try their dinner menu.
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Introduction
Baan Lao opened in 2021 and has since been awarded numerous “Best of” awards, including The Best Restaurant in Western Canada 2025 and the Best Destination Restaurant Award 2025.
This intimate waterfront restaurant specializes in Royal Thai cuisine prepared with fresh farm-to-table ingredients. Open only for dinner, plus afternoon tea on weekends, advance reservations are required.
Location
Baan Lao is located in the historic Steveston fishing village area of Richmond, BC, about 11km from YVR International Airport. The restaurant is located next to the river, inside an unassuming building.
If you’ve never visited this area of town, it is a lovely place to stroll by the river and check out the catch of the day on the pier.
Address: 4100 Bayview Street, Richmond, BC V7E 6S8
Parking: Free street parking along Bayview Street, or the nearby underground lot. We had no issue finding free street parking on the weekend.
Baan Lao Hours
- Afternoon Tea: Saturdays and Sundays, 12:30pm
- Dinner: Wednesday to Sunday, 5:00pm and 6:30pm
Baan Lao Reservations
Due to the intimate nature of the restaurant and its capacity for only about 20 guests, advance online reservations are required.
Note that prepayment (including grautity) is required and it is non-refundable. Rescheduling is allowed with at least 5 days notice.
We left our anniversary reservations kind of late this year since we couldn’t decide where to go. When we attempted to make a reservation one week prior to our anniversary, the dinner reservations were unfortunately all sold out. I added my name to the waitlist and to my surprise, the restaurant actually called me to let me know they had a cancellation and could fit us in! I was thrilled.
The restaurant suggested we take the 5pm seating to have a more quiet dinner, as it becomes a full house by 7pm.
Arrival at Baan Lao
We arrived promptly at 5pm and as soon as they saw us approaching the front door, they opened it for us and took our coats.
Turns out we were the very first ones to arrive for dinner, and to our amusement, we were seated at the exact same table as we had last year – a lovely spot right by the window with a view of the river.
On our table, we were greeted with a letter personally signed by Chef Nutcha, along with the drink and food menus.
Our friendly waiter asked if we wanted still or sparkling water before going into great detail about the various beverage pairings on offer. They were quite impressive, but we are not big on beverages in general, so we just went with one mocktail each.
From Thailand With Love Menu
Chef Nutcha Phanthoupheng created her personal “From Thailand with Love” menu to take diners on a journey through the Kingdom of Thailand, celebrating her cherished memories of home.
The menu consists of 18 intricately prepared dishes made from the finest ingredients, both sourced locally and from abroad, and served on custom handmade dinnerware.
The journey begins with amuse bouche, followed by appetizers and soup, then a palate cleanser before heading into the mains. Another palate cleanser is served before the final course: dessert.
Baan Lao Thai Dinner Review
Drinks
Before we got started with the dinner journey, we were served our Voss still water and mocktails.
I went with the Faux-jito, a delicious mint, lime and pandan leaf combo.
Ryan went with the Little Bird which was a delicious ginger drink with lime and bird’s eye chili which gave it a unique spicy kick. It even came garnished with a candy thai red chili made of Thai-style marzipan (sweet, not spicy!)
Amuse Bouche
Our servers then arrived at our table with the beautifully presented amuse bouche served in traditional-style baskets.
They recommended we start from the right as we worked our way through the five delicately prepared amuse bouche.
First was the Rice Cracker with Yellow Curry – an explosion of flavour! This was one of my favourite dishes and an excellent start to the journey.
Next was the Thai Dumpling with Organic Chicken. I loved how it was shaped like a little chick.
In the middle was the Wild Pepper Leaf Wrap in Carved Carrot. I was impressed how perfectly the carrot was carved!
This was followed by the Grass-Fed Water Buffalo on Pineapple Spoon – another perfectly carved creation!
Last but not least was the Golden Pastry with Catfish and Sour Mango.
All five were unique and delicoius in their own way, each bursting with flavour. It was hard to choose a favourite but for me, it was a tie between the rice cracker with yellow curry and water buffalo on pineapple!
Appetizers
Our first appetizer, Coconut Mousse with Dungeness and Caviar, was served in a miniature size traditional Thai rice steamer, hand woven by Chef Nutcha herself! The coconut mousse was served inside a tapioca flour cup and contained dungeness crab locally caught right in Steveston. On top was wild sturgeon caviar and edible Italian gold leaf. Wow.
The next appetizer was the Duck Larb, a traditional style Thai salad, which was another display of impressive carving technique.
The final appetizer was the Miyazaki A5 BMS 12 Wagyu served right from a miniature table-top grill.
The chef recommended we take the first bite without any dipping sauce so we could taste the natural flavour of the beef. Oh my, was this ever delicious! She’s right – it does not even need any sauce.
However, we dipped the next bite in the Thai sauce and it was superb. I wish I had more food to dip in that sauce – it was just so good!
Soup
Our next course was the Coconut Soup withTruffle Pearls.
The lovely bowls were brought to our table containing the truffle pearls made from truffles from France and beautiful edible flower petals shipped in from Japan.
Our server carefully explained every ingredient in the soup, even asking us to stop and smell the wonderful aroma of the truffle pearls, before pouring in the soup broth.
The soup was a coconut base with galangal and lemongrass with a hint of chili pepper and black truffle. It was absolutely amazing and had me finishing every last drop.
Palate Cleanser #1
After those wonderful starters, we were brought the Lemongrass Pandan Elixir to cleanse our palate. We were already familiar with this from the Thai Afternoon Tea experience we did last year and we were excited to get to try it again.
It’s a very refreshing drink that reminds us of Fruity Pebbles for some reason 🙂
Mains
Our first main was the Blue Crab in Green Curry and it ended up being our favourite of the evening!
The curry was exquisite with handmade rice vermicelli and blue crab flown in from Thailand, with an artful squid ink topping. I loved the flavour of the green curry – it had just the perfect amount of spice and the crab flavour wasn’t overpowering.
For the next main, it was another beautiful dish: Japanese Tiger Prawn with Lobster Tom Yum. It was decorated with rare wolffia pearls (a first for us!) and vegan caviar made of seaweed. Apparently Baan Lao is the only place in Canada that has the wolffia pearls, which are shipped in from Thailand.
Our final main was the Water Buffalo Shank and Massaman Curry. It was delivered to our table with a glass cover, and when lifted, it released the alderwood smoke which gave the dish a wonderful flavour.
The water buffalo was from a local farm in Langley and the rice from Chef Nutcha’s personal farm in Thailand.
Palate Cleanser #2
Our final palate cleanser of the evening was a Sour Mango Sorbet and Achovy Sauce. This was quite the unique pairing!
We were instructed to fully mix it all together before tasting it, which we did, but we still found the anchovy flavour quite overpowering. Definitely an interesting combination.
Dessert
Now it was time for dessert, which is always a highlight of any meal for me.
We began with the Smoked Ice Cream with Bamboo Sticky Rice. Smoked ice cream sounds odd but it surprisingly tasted delicious! Well, I guess I shouldn’t say “surprisingly” because everything Chef Nutcha makes is delicious!
It was made from coconut cream and smoked for two hours. A very unique taste but we both loved it! Combined with the sticky rice, it was absolutely divine.
Next we had a bowl of perfectly carved fruits drizzled with homemade pandan syrup – yum!
The Petit Fours were presented on a gorgeous wooden display. The luuk choop took three hours to make and were hand painted. As for the rice cookie, it was smoked for six hours – another unique but delicious flavour!
Baan Lao Service
From the moment we stepped through the front door, we felt the high end calibre of service. All the servers were incredibly professional, kind and knowledgeable.
We appreciated how they took the time to fully explain each and every dish to us, down to which farm each ingredient came from.
The way they served us both at the exact same time was a very nice touch. We were also impressed how they brought us new cutlery for each course after clearing the previous one.
To our surprise, they served us our dessert with candles to wish us a happy anniversary. And as a little gift, we received a lovely box of unique handmade Thai chocolates!
At the end of the evening, Ryan even got to chat with Chef Nutcha herself as she was working away in the kitchen, and express how much we enjoyed our meal.
Baan Lao Dress Code
The restaurant states that their dress code is “smart casual” and they request guests to wear elegant attire and appropriate footwear.
From what we observed both times we’ve dined here, guests were nicely dressed but not overly fancy. On both occasions, we even saw guests wearing sneakers and hoodies. So while elegant attire is suggested, I haven’t seen it being strictly enforced.
Baan Lao Fine Thai Cuisine Price
If you’re wondering just how much this dinner costs, well, unsurprisingly, it’s not cheap. The From Thailand With Love set menu costs $245/person plus tax and gratuity, for a grand total of $306/person, due at the time of reservation. Drink pairings are an additional cost.
Is it worth the price? We’d say so. It was a full on experience lasting almost three hours and the flavours were arguably the best we’ve ever had in the world. The precision and care with which each individual dish was prepared and presented was mind-blowing. For a special occasion, Baan Lao is definitely worth it.
American Express Platinum Dining Credit
If you have an American Express Platinum card (Canadian version), you know that you get a $200 dining credit each year to spend at one of the restaurants on their curated list of best restaurants across Canada. Thankfully, Baan Lao is on this list!
We absolutely love our Platinum Amex card and getting to try new restaurants using the dining credits. If you don’t yet have this card in your wallet, we highly recommend it! Check out our referral link to learn more and apply!
Final Thoughts on Baan Lao Fine Thai Cuisine
After having tried their fantastic Thai Afternoon Tea, and now their wonderful From Thailand With Love dinner menu, we can still confidently say that Baan Lao is one of our favourite restaurants.
Every dish has blown us away in both flavour and presentation. Even though each dish looks small, each and every one is packed full of flavour and love. We left the two and a half hour dinner experience feeling completely satisfied and grateful.
Even after having dined here twice already, we can still see ourselves coming back for more!
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