Key Factors
- Robert Larkin and his Thailand-born spouse Prapa opened Australia’s first ‘genuine’ Thai restaurant in St Kilda in 1977.
- At first, they imported a majority of elements together with 200kg of chilli paste each month.
- The restaurant was frequented by well-known faces together with former PM Bob Hawke and singing legend John Farnham.
In 1977, husband and spouse Robert and Prapa Larkin opened Bahn Thai in St Kilda, certainly one of Australia’s first Thai eating places.
Robert’s father had urged the couple to turn into restaurateurs after the recognition of Prapa’s cooking for the Australia-Thai Affiliation of Victoria.
“The affiliation would organise fundraising features for scholar welfare, and if we catered for 100, 200 would flip up,” Robert mentioned.
“That gave my spouse the inducement to strive opening our personal restaurant.”
Robert met Prapa Vatanopast whereas working as an engineer in Papua New Guinea in 1972, and invited her to maneuver to Melbourne to be with him.
Prapa was working as an accountant for the Royal Irrigation Division in Bangkok.
“He requested if I wished to return to Australia, however I didn’t actually know the place Australia was. Nonetheless, I believed it will be thrilling to go overseas. So, I got here, studied at RMIT, after which we married in 1973,” Prapa mentioned.
Then and now: Robert and Prapa Larkin had been married in 1972 and opened their Thai restaurant 5 years later. Credit score: Provided
They then set about remodeling an outdated movie studio on St Kilda Street into Bahn Thai, utilizing conventional recipes and elements and staffed by cooks introduced from Thailand.
Diners had been launched to over 40 traditional Thai dishes together with inexperienced curry, tom yum and pad krapow — dishes that went on to hit the mainstream within the many years following.
Sourcing elements was at first difficult, Robert mentioned, recalling that within the early days, they imported 200kg of chilli paste and different important elements every month from Bangkok.
Prapa’s cooking abilities had been handed down by way of her household, with each her brother and sister-in-law later becoming a member of her as cooks at Bahn Thai.
In response to knowledge from the Thai Restaurant Affiliation of Australia, there are actually 1,322 Thai eating places throughout Australia.
Sydney College Professor Philip Hirsch mentioned about one in 4 Australian eating places had been Thai.
“In Sydney alone, there are about 678 Thai eating places listed within the Australian Thai restaurant listing,” he mentioned.
That is in stark distinction to when Bahn Thai opened.
Prapa mentioned at the moment, there was just one different Thai restaurant — Pawan’s Thai in Sydney — nevertheless it was run by non-Thai house owners.
Jan O’Connell, writer of Australian Meals Timeline, advised SBS Thai that Bahn Thai held the excellence of being Australia’s first ‘genuine’ Thai restaurant as a result of it was owned and largely staffed by Thai nationals and imported conventional elements from Thailand.
Former prime minister Bob Hawke dined on the restaurant along with his daughter. Credit score: Patrick Riviere/Getty Photos
Robert mentioned the restaurant’s unique flavours and genuine method had been a drawcard for “adventurous” diners together with a reviewer from the Melbourne Herald who famously wrote about “blinking again with hot-water tears” after sampling certainly one of their spicy curries.
Different well-known diners adopted together with then prime minister Bob Hawke, the Dalai Lama, John Farnham, and Jimmy Barnes.
Robert recalled a memorable go to from Hawke: “His daughter was a very good buyer of ours, and he or she mentioned, ‘I’m bringing my dad’.”
“This man got here in, it was Bob Hawke. If we’d identified it was him, we’d have put him at a extra non-public desk, however he was proper in entrance of the door.
“Everybody that got here into the restaurant, the primary particular person they noticed was the prime minister having dinner along with his daughter.”
Prapa and Robert Larkin with certainly one of their youngsters exterior their restaurant. Credit score: Robert Larkin
After eight years, the Larkins relocated Bahn Thai to a bigger, extra non-public house on Business Street, Prahran, however the restaurant’s calls for started to take a toll on their household life, Robert mentioned.
“At that stage, we had three youngsters at dwelling. Grandma had come down from Thailand to take care of the youngsters. However you don’t see your youngsters; you might have a household life, or you might have a restaurant,” he mentioned.
The couple handed the enterprise to Prapa’s nephew earlier than it once more modified palms.
As we speak, the couple lives by the ocean in Mount Martha, travelling typically to Thailand, attempting new dishes, and reflecting on the journey that made them pioneers of Thai delicacies in Australia.
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