For three nights this week, a Thompson Street seafood restaurant hands its kitchen to a Thai bar from London. Speedboat Bar, the Bangkok Chinatown style canteen that chef Luke Farrell runs on Rupert Street in London's Soho and on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, takes over The Otter inside The Manner hotel in SoHo on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 22 to 24.

The Otter describes the takeover as the first time Speedboat Bar's Thai-Chinese cooking has come to the United States. It is also, according to The Manner, The Otter's first pop-up of any kind. Speedboat's London flagship sits in Soho, so for three nights a restaurant from one Soho is cooking in the other.

What is on the table

Dinner is a single set menu at $85 per person, built for sharing. The Otter has published the full lineup in advance:

  • Crispy chicken skins with zaep seasoning
  • Sweetcorn fritters
  • Chicken and lemongrass salad
  • Stir-fried morning glory with soy bean sauce
  • Minced beef with holy basil
  • Crispy pork and black pepper curry
  • Jasmine rice
  • Pineapple pie for dessert

The menu is fixed. The Otter notes that it will not adjust dishes for dietary restrictions during the takeover, though guests with a food allergy are asked to tell staff, and allergen details are available on request. Anyone who does not eat pork, beef or chicken should know that all three are central to the set.

The drinks list

Cocktails are ordered separately, and the bar list follows the London original's habit of pairing Thai ingredients with familiar formats. The lineup and prices:

  • Phed Pokati Margarita, $22: green mango tequila, makrut lime leaf, green chili and amchur salt
  • Snakeblood Negroni, $20: herb-infused London dry gin, coconut Campari and hibiscus red vermouth
  • Vodka Farang, $19: pink guava vodka and soda with kumquat jelly
  • Bia, $16: ginger, honey and calamansi topped with pale lager
  • Whisky and soda, $16
  • Cha Som Jeed, $9: iced Thai tea with calamansi and lime, with no alcohol

The Manner says Thai hyperpop will be on the speakers for all three nights. In London, Speedboat Bar plays Thai pop and rock through the evening.

Who is behind Speedboat Bar

Luke Farrell is a British chef whose first restaurant, Plaza Khao Gaeng, serves Southern Thai curries. Speedboat Bar was his second. On its own site, the restaurant describes itself as a re-creation of the late-night canteens of Bangkok's Chinatown: curries, stir-fries, drunken noodles and sour, chili-laced seafood salads, served alongside whisky sodas and towers of cold Singha beer. The Rupert Street original has a central bar and a pool table and stays open until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. A second Speedboat Bar opened at 191 Portobello Road, in the Electric building in Notting Hill.

Speedboat Bar's own website now carries a Speedboat NYC link that sends diners straight to the booking page for the SoHo dates.

About The Otter and The Manner

The Otter is the ground-floor restaurant of The Manner, a hotel at 58 Thompson Street, between Broome and Spring Streets. In normal service it is a seafood restaurant with an oyster-focused cocktail hour from 3 to 6 p.m. daily, breakfast every morning, weekend brunch and a dog-friendly patio. Dinner runs until 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday and until 11 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, so all three Speedboat nights fall on the restaurant's later schedule.

The takeover is one of several events the hotel has lined up for the season. The Otter will keep its patio open from 3 p.m. on Halloween with Cocktail Hour running all evening and a view of the costumes on the street, and dogs in costume are welcome. Upstairs at Sloane's, the hotel's lounge, Mondays are martini nights with live jazz.

How to get there

The Manner is on the west side of SoHo. The closest subway is the Spring Street station on the C and E at Sixth Avenue, a few blocks away. The Canal Street station on the A, C and E is a short walk south, and the Spring Street station on the 6 is a longer walk east across Broadway and Lafayette.

How to book

Speedboat Bar x The Otter runs Thursday, October 22, Friday, October 23 and Saturday, October 24 at The Otter, 58 Thompson Street, New York, NY 10012. Reservations are made through OpenTable as a ticketed experience, linked from The Otter's website, The Manner's happenings page and Speedboat Bar's own site. The set menu is $85 per person before drinks. Groups of 15 or more are asked to email the hotel's events team at sales@soho.themanner.com rather than book online.

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