Hua Hin Will Bring Thai Fine Dining To Southeast Portland

In early March, a Bridgetown Bites tipster told me that there was going to be a new restaurant in the space that was recently home to Phaya Thai Express—and that it was going to be a “Thai fine dining” concept. Then late last month I learned the new restaurant’s name: Hua Hin. I reached out to the owner, Ize Piyanut (Sampaotong), to learn more, and we spent a little time chatting about what’s to come there.

Hua Hin: What’s in a Name?

The restaurant is named after the village in southern Thailand of the same name. Hua Hin is in the south of Thailand, along the west coast of the Gulf of Thailand, and about 125 miles south of Bangkok. It’s considered a beach resort town in an area of the country that the Thai government is promoting as the “Thai Riviera.”

It is also the town Piyanut grew up in. More on that below.

Ize Piyanut

Piyanut is a recent resident of Portland. He was invited by his friend Nan. and liked it enough to stay. Before arriving in Portland he was in Vancouver, Canada where he cooked at Song (By Kin Kao), which offers elevated Thai cuisine and natural wines. The restaurant received a Michelin Bib Gourmand award four years in a row between 2022 and 2025.

He was born and raised in Hua Hin and learned to cook from his mother, and brings that influence with him to the restaurant. Additionally, for over 30 years his family has run a restaurant in Hua Hin called Khao Tom Phone Link, named after the classic savory rice porridge/soup, Khao Tom. Piyanut’s mother is the chef there.

Hua Hin: Thai Fine Dining

Portland is known to have a lot of Thai restaurants, but one thing it’s light on is Thai food in a fine dining setting. I imagine we all have our favorite neighborhood Thai restaurants (Thai Seasons and Sabai Thai are mine), but destination Thai is a smaller cohort.

Piyanut is excited to bring elevated Thai cuisine and hospitality to Portland. The food will will incorporate both imported ingredients and local ones, including produce, seafood, and animal products. He is not aiming to make this a regional Thai restaurant—for instance, it won’t be specifically Isan like Zab Pinto is, or Northern Thai like OK Chicken & Khao Soi. But instead, he plans to include dishes from around Thailand, that represent the various regions.

“I’m going to bring the food from my mom and create it here, too,” he said. These are family recipes and dishes his mom developed and things she has cooked over in Thailand. Lately, though, she’s been in town helping her son set things up at the restaurant here in Portland.

Why This Location for Hua Hin?

I wondered why Piyanut chose this location for his restaurant, and it had to do with a personal connection. Earlier, I mentioned his friend Nan, who invited him to come to Portland, and who he met up with when he came to travel (“I didn’t know much in Portland, so before I took over the restaurant, I came to travel first”). And as you may have guessed it, that is Nan Chaison, who was the owner of the previous restaurant in this space, Phaya Thai Express.

Along with Phaya Thai Express “taking a big pause” in February, Nan also closed Libre this month, though she may be involved with something called Ring Ding Ding in that space, as per a recent liquor license application.

Anyway, when Piyanut was here a while back, she asked if he wanted to take over the space. He said, “Yes, of course!” and now we have Hua Hin in the neighborhood.

Fun fact: Nan is has been a family friend of Piyanut’s for a number of years; his mom and her mom know each other.

The Design

They did make some changes to the interior—which has a good sized dining room and a big patio out back. He and a friend did some plaster work on the walls and bar area, and texturized the table tops with plaster, as well There’s new dark brown paneling on some of the walls, and lots of plants placed in hanging trays above the bar.

There are leather and wood banquettes along some of the walls but they were already there. They also to the opportunity to rearrange the seating—tables and chairs—in that space. There’s around 64 seats inside the restaurant; patio seating number is unclear at this time.

One of the pluses for them was that there wasn’t a lot of necessary or critical work to be done when they started to work on the new restaurant—no big buildout, and mostly aesthetics to be concerned about. He also told me about the sign design.

The Hua Hin Sign

“When I took over this restaurant, my wife [Panatcha] created the sign,” he explained. “You can see a sun in the circle, and the waves [inside.].”

Along with her design skills, she is Hua Hin’s General Manager. “My wife was a manager in Canada,” Piyanut explained. “She’ll be the general manager here.”

And with a friend, they aimed to make their plasterwork reflect the sand on a beach—on both the bar and the tables. This all matches the elements of the beachy aspect of Hua Hin in Thailand: sun, sand, and waves.

“That’s what I come from, where they have a really nice beach, ” Piyanut remarked. “So that’s why we created it like this.” He wants the restaurant to be a place people can come and have a good time, relax, and enjoy some great food—essentially, to take a break from the outside world.

Favorites on the Menu

On the drinking side, there will be cocktails and mocktails, as well as the requisite Thai tea.

Some of the things he is particularly excited about on the food side is the pomelo salad, crab fried rice made with jumbo lump crab meat, Tom Yum soup, and Pad Thai. And since Hua Hin is a seaside town, fish and seafood will naturally be a part of the menu.

He’s also looking forward to using local PNW oysters.

On the Topic of Oysters

He showed me an example of the oysters he prepared at Song in Vancouver and he wants to bring something like that to Hua Hin here in Portland.

“Normally, the Thai people here like oysters, with lemon—in Canada, too,” he explained. “In my hometown in Thailand, people like to eat oysters with a seafood sauce. So that’s why I want to bring it here and try with the fried shallot and then a drop of chili oil—just a little bit.” Just enough to make it just a little spicy.

 I asked him to talk a bit about what exactly “seafood sauce” is, because it is not a cocktail sauce. “The seafood sauce, I made it by myself,” he said. “It’s going to be made with garlic, chili, lime, and cilantro. The taste is going to be like a little bit sour, spicy, and a little bit salty.”

A Whole Fish

I love a good whole fish dish at a Thai restaurant. One of my favorite Thai dishes in Portland is Pla Thawt Samoon Prai, which is a deep fried whole trout topped with lemongrass, red onion, ginger, long coriander, kaffir lime leaf, mint, peanut, cashews, and a spicy sauce (I don’t think it’s very spicy, but YMMV). And I miss the whole fried fish at the late great Ploy Thai in Elmhurst, Queens. So I was happy to hear Piyanut say, “We will have a whole fish, too.”

It will be served with three sauce options. “So we’re going to start with a big pot, right? And put the fish through the pot and then the meat can be topped with one of three sauces.” Sp far they have a spicy one, their seafood sauce, and one other to come.

Menu Changes for Seasonality

He plans to change the menu about every three months to take advantage of what is in season during any time of the year. That said, some dishes like Pad Thai will remain standard. (“Because everybody loves Pad Thai.”)

Service

Along with elevated food they aim to offer elevated hospitality. Piyanut spoke about the role of their servers, who will be there not only to provide wait-service, but also be able to tell the story of the food and offer guidance on how to traditionally eat and/or mix the food.

He brought up the pomelo salad as an example. “Some people don’t know how to eat it,” he explained. “We let the server tell the customer how to eat it—how to wrap it.” Conventionally, you wrap this salad in lettuce leaves that come with the salad.

Look for them to do a soft opening on Friday, April 17. Their hours will be 5pm to 10:30pm. There will be a happy hour menu starting at 5pm for an hour, as well as a late night happy hour during the final hour of the day. Look for them to be open Thursdays to Tuesdays, and closed Wednesdays.

Brunch may happen in the future, but for now they want to get their dinner service in place.

Best of luck to Piyanut, Panatcha, and their team as they get ready to open later this week.

Hua Hin [soft opens April 17, 2026]
4334 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland
Hua Hin website | Instagram | Facebook

Updated April 27, 2026 to adjust their new hours open.