BWW Preview: SAMUI is a Trendy New Thai Restaurant & Bar in Fort Greene

A new oasis of enthralling food, eye-popping design and captivating music has emerged in Brooklyn's increasingly buzzy Fort Greene neighborhood with the debut of Samui, a 109-seat southeastern Asian restaurant with a focus on modern Thai food. Named after a lush Thai island, Samui is inspired by the food that Owner/Chef A. Napadol's grandmother so lovingly prepared for her home-based northeast Thailand restaurant. It was cuisine that A cooked throughout her childhood. Samui, represents A's return to a restaurant kitchen after racking up successful careers in jewelry and real estate. The restaurant is the realization of a long-held dream to bring a lighter more healthful style of Thai food with less sauce and sugar to New York City.

A's expansive menu for Samui showcases dishes rooted in organic locally sourced ingredients in a number of categories that include raw, small plates, soups, salads, sliders, noodles, noodles soups, fried rice, big plates and sides. All are based on recipes A first learned at her grandmother's side, which she has refined and re-imagined over the years to give them a contemporary flare, incorporating some of the European influences which exemplify modern Thai cuisine.

Menu highlights include: Chili Naked Shrimp, vodka, lime; Black Potato Fritters, cucumber relish; Mussel Pancake, garlic chive, bean sprouts; Spicy Grilled Beef, lime, mint; and Grilled Black Cod, miso jalapeno marinade. The menu also features A's two personal favorites, Turmeric Garlic Chicken Wings, sweet chili peanut dip among the small plates and Papaya with Roasted Peanuts as a salad option.

To introduce the culture of beauty, happiness and joy they feel in the island of Samui, A and her music producer husband, Hani Albader, worked with New York-based architecture and design firm StudiosGO to transform a Fort Greene garage into a highly styled, strikingly symmetric and somewhat exotic space. Capitalizing on original exposed brick, 15 ft. high ceilings and the owners' vision to provide a transporting environment for patrons, they have made Samui a bar-raiser for restaurant design in the Brooklyn Naval Yard area.

The Samui difference begins on the restaurant's facade decorated by a large scale multi-colored symmetric mural by renowned graffiti artist Andrea von Bujdoss (aka QUEEN ANDREA ONE), which evokes the Ft. Greene' industrial heritage. Inside the glow from three custom-made geometric copper chandeliers, fabricated by Joel Voisard, illuminates the sensuous, undulation of the dining room's turquoise velvet banquettes. The white recycled glass bar and its white leather chairs serve as a stark counterpoint to their vibrant richness. A richness that is punctuated with hand-blown glass "barnacles" by noted craftsman Michael Skura climbing up one side of the bar's back wall and by the curve that punctuates the other side. That unexpected wave in the wall acts as a canvas for 3D mapped projections of local video artists' work created by Aryn John Freysteinson of RabCup Corp.

As carefully curated as the food and the look, the "Samui Sound" playlist has been carefully curated by Hani to complete the restaurant's atmospheric attractions.

Seasonally inspired signature cocktails, local beers on tap along with an array of bottled beers including Thai ones, and a well considered, compact list of modestly priced wines complement the new restaurant's culinary excellence.

Samui is located at 15 Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205, just across Flushing Avenue from the Brooklyn Nava Yard. The restaurant will open daily for dinner at 5:30 p.m. It will close at 11 p.m., Monday thru Thursday, and at 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Reservations may be made by calling (917) 909-1032. Visit their web site at: www.samuibrooklyn.com.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Samui

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