Why are so many Thai restaurants hidden inside London pubs?

Pints and pad Thai may seem like an unlikely pairing. But tucked away in London's backstreets is a culinary tradition with a surprising history.

Three pints into a crisp evening in west London, I'm standing outside The Churchill Arms pub with some British friends, and I'm getting hungry.  

"We can just eat here. I've booked us a table at the Thai restaurant in the back," a friend says.

Maybe it's the ale talking, or the jet lag from my New York flight, but I'm confused. "There's a Thai restaurant here?" I ask. "In the back of the pub?"

My friends whisk me past the bar, where model British war planes, flags and World War Two-era military photographs fill the walls. But as we approach the backroom, Union Jacks turn into Trairong – the tricolour Thai flag – and woven rattan baskets, small boat oars and old kanok metal lanterns dangle from the ceiling.

We pass a busy kitchen filled with the clang of pots and woks, and a Thai waiter leads us to a table in what feels like a tropical greenhouse. Lush ferns dangle from the ceiling, while bright red and yellow flowers sprout from planters and pictures of exotic butterflies cover the walls. Looking back towards the dark, wood-panelled British pub in the next room, I feel as though I've been transported somewhere else.

In reality, I've just stepped into one of London's most unique dining experiences: a Thai restaurant tucked into a traditional British or Irish bar, cheekily known as a "Thai-rish" pub.

Though well-known among London barflies, many visitors may be surprised to learn that roughly 30 Thai restaurants operate out of the hidden backrooms and upstairs lofts of traditional English or Irish-run pubs. At first glance, these portmanteau pubs may seem like a rather unlikely pairing, but over the decades, these fusion businesses have become a distinctive feature of the city's pub culture – and as I'd soon learn, the idea was born right here at The Churchill Arms. 

The origin of Thai-rish pubs

According to BBC Radio London's restaurant contributor, Stephanie Brookes, Thai cuisine wasn't on most Londoners' radars back in the 1980s, but the city's tastes were changing.

At most pubs, "food was once an afterthought", Brookes says, remembering the ham-and-cheese toasties and packets of crisps served in her youth. At the time, there weren't many Thai restaurants in London, but as Thailand became a popular backpacking destination for young Brits in the late 1980s and '90s, more travellers returned with a taste for Thai food.

"[People who wanted to] try new cuisines and experience different flavours had that opportunity – it's inevitable that tastes [back home in Britain] would start to change as a result," Brookes says. "This was partly a backlash against the bland food and austerity that came before."

The Churchill Arms' current manager James Keogh, remembers how the unlikely idea of serving pints alongside pad Thai was born. As he recalls, an Irishman named Gerry O'Brien moved to........

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