Kin Khao

Kin Khao sits inside the Parc 55 in Union Square, and the entrance alone — through the hotel lobby or up a side stairway by the FedEx sign — sets up the wrong expectation. This isn't hotel food. It's funk-and-spice-forward Thai cooking that doesn't soften itself for tourists or dull itself for convenience, the kind of plate that argues with you before you've finished reading the menu.

Dinner is the better version of the restaurant: the menu opens up, the pace eases, and the room fills with diners splitting bottles and working through courses built for sharing. Service and atmosphere carry real weight here, and the kitchen backs it up — fish sauce, chile, and funk pushed hard enough to leave a mark rather than a polite memory.

It's also Nari's sister restaurant, which tells you something about the pedigree without needing a trophy case to prove it. The trophy case exists anyway: a Michelin star landed in 2026, confirmation rather than the reason to go. Ignore the rolling suitcases in the lobby. The food is the destination, the hotel is incidental.