Nari
The curry pastes are pounded by hand every morning, and the order the ingredients go into the mortar changes what comes out.
Why go
Samin Nosrat is the one who explains it: Many dozens of ingredients go into these curries. They're pounded by hand, fresh every day, and the order in which you layer the ingredients into the pestle, into the mortar, makes a difference.
Pim Techamuanvivit is the executive chef and owner, and Nosrat says she has never tasted Thai food like that before.
The MICHELIN inspector who gave the room its star names what that method produces: a brick red bumbai curry with crispy fried eggplant, served with an ethereally flaky roti bread,
and grilled Monterey squid in chili-lime dressing plated with impossibly tender, sticky-sweet pork jowl.
1 The room sits inside the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown, two floors of it.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the squid and pork jowl, which both the guide and the Infatuation stop on. Julia Chen scored the place 9.2 and called it
the head-turning it girl of the menu.
2 The $125 chef's pick menu carries off-menu duck curry puffs,made of mesmerizing laminated layers and a melty duck confit filling.
For the branzino, ask for the miang pla. - Avoid: the gaeng kua mussels. Chen: "Unless you're a self-described bivalve freak, there are more exciting dishes to try."
What locals & experts say
- Samin Nosrat, Condé Nast Traveler (September 2025): "The executive chef and owner, Pim Techamuanvivit, has this dedication to craft and tradition." Read at the Yahoo syndication; the masthead blocks our fetch route.
- MICHELIN Guide California, one star:
Intensely aromatic curries achieve a marvelous complexity.
1 - The Infatuation SF (Julia Chen, May 2025), 9.2:
There's no other Thai restaurant in the city like Nari.
2 The Infatuation is owned by JPMorgan Chase.
Good to know
- Booking: essential for the dining room. The upstairs cocktail lounge takes walk-ins and serves à la carte, which is where to go for a bowl of priking gai without a reservation.
- Timing: dinner. Dishes come family style, portioned to the size of the table.
- Getting there: Post Street in Japantown, inside the Hotel Kabuki.
Verdict
must-visit — Samin Nosrat, who has spent a career explaining why technique matters, picks this room for the part that is hardest to fake: curry pastes pounded by hand every morning, in an order that changes the result. A MICHELIN Star and a 9.2 from Julia Chen back her up, and both of them name the same grilled Monterey squid and pork jowl. There is a $125 tasting with off-menu duck curry puffs and an upstairs bar that takes walk-ins, so the room is reachable at two price points. This is a kitchen doing something nobody else in the city is doing, which is the definition of the top rung.