Eats

Bangkok Diners Club – Thai barbecue restaurant to take over award-winning Ancoats pub

Barbecue on Blossom Street.

Daisy Jackson - 20th March 2025

The kitchens of the award-winning Edinburgh Castle pub are set to be taken over by a brand new offering – the Bangkok Diners Club is moving in.

Taking a step away from the gastropub’s previous menu of elevated British classics (its old head chef Shaun Moffatt recently opened his own restaurant, Winsome, where you can still eat that), this entirely new offering will bring a taste of Thai barbecue to Ancoats.

The exciting new opening will have a meat-focused menu cooked with wood smoke from an in-house smoker.

Chef Ben Humpheys – formerly of the futuristic Thai restaurant District, in the Northern Quarter – will combine his 20-year obsession with Thai cuisine with a ‘new-found love for low-n-slow cooking’.

That’ll mean slow-smoked meats, which Ben fell in love with in Miami, bringing a new take to traditional dishes like ex-dairy beef Nam Tok and BBQ pork jowl with burnt tomato Nam Jim Jaew.

There’ll also be dishes like Gaeng Khua, a southern curry of smoked mutton ribs, and Thai omelette with smoked mushroom and Nam Prik Pao.

Ben has honed the menu with his wife Bo, who was born and raised in the northeastern Isan region, before moving to Bangkok as a teenager.

He said: “Barbecue is huge in Thailand, but it’s usually fast and furious over fire. Last year we spent some time in Miami – we had so much mega BBQ, and I found for me the best dishes had Mexican or Korean heat and citrus which cut through the richness of the meat.

“It got me thinking about how I could do that with Thai flavours and techniques.”

Bangkok Diners Club is taking over the kitchens at the Edinburgh Castle pub — Credit: Shaun Peckham

Ben added that the menu at Bangkok Diners Club will draw inspiration from right across the country, as is common of the cuisine in Bangkok itself, whether it’s using fresh turmeric common in the south or herbs and dry spices from the mountains in Northern Thailand.

He said: “That exciting approach is what we’re trying to do here – it’s all rooted in a deep respect for the Thai cooking traditions and an obsessive understanding of how Thai dishes are built; how the flavours are layered and the heat builds – but without the constraints of identifying with a single region.”

Partner Danny Collins added: “We’ve spent countless nights cooking and celebrating with Bo’s family in Bangkok, and we want to bring that same energy to Manchester, and to the pub.

“We hope to give people something you can’t really get anywhere else, while offering a dining experience that’s fun, communal, and full of flavour.”

Bangkok Diners Club will open at the Edinburgh Castle in Ancoats on 2 April, with bookings live now HERE.

Featured image: Shaun Peckham