Key Points
- Robert Larkin and his Thailand-born wife Prapa opened Australia’s first ‘authentic’ Thai restaurant in St Kilda in 1977.
- At first, they imported a majority of ingredients including 200kg of chilli paste every month.
- The restaurant was frequented by famous faces including former PM Bob Hawke and singing legend John Farnham.
In 1977, husband and wife Robert and Prapa Larkin opened Bahn Thai in St Kilda, one of Australia’s first Thai restaurants.
Robert’s father had urged the couple to become restaurateurs after the popularity of Prapa’s cooking for the Australia-Thai Association of Victoria.
“The association would organise fundraising functions for student welfare, and if we catered for 100, 200 would turn up,” Robert said.
“That gave my wife the incentive to try opening our own restaurant.”
Robert met Prapa Vatanopast while working as an engineer in Papua New Guinea in 1972, and invited her to move to Melbourne to be with him.
Prapa was working as an accountant for the Royal Irrigation Department in Bangkok.
“He asked if I wanted to come to Australia, but I didn’t really know where Australia was. Still, I thought it would be exciting to go abroad. So, I came, studied at RMIT, and then we married in 1973,” Prapa said.
Then and now: Robert and Prapa Larkin were married in 1972 and opened their Thai restaurant five years later. Credit: Supplied
They then set about transforming an old film studio on St Kilda Road into Bahn Thai, using traditional recipes and ingredients and staffed by chefs brought from Thailand.
Diners were introduced to over 40 classic Thai dishes including green curry, tom yum and pad krapow — dishes that went on to hit the mainstream in the decades following.
Sourcing ingredients was at first challenging, Robert said, recalling that in the early days, they imported 200kg of chilli paste and other essential ingredients each month from Bangkok.
Prapa’s cooking skills were passed down through her family, with both her brother and sister-in-law later joining her as chefs at Bahn Thai.
According to data from the Thai Restaurant Association of Australia, there are now 1,322 Thai restaurants across Australia.
Sydney University Professor Philip Hirsch said about one in four Australian restaurants were Thai.
“In Sydney alone, there are about 678 Thai restaurants listed in the Australian Thai restaurant directory,” he said.
This is in stark contrast to when Bahn Thai opened.
Prapa said at that time, there was only one other Thai restaurant — Pawan’s Thai in Sydney — but it was run by non-Thai owners.
Jan O’Connell, author of Australian Food Timeline, told SBS Thai that Bahn Thai held the distinction of being Australia’s first ‘authentic’ Thai restaurant because it was owned and largely staffed by Thai nationals and imported traditional ingredients from Thailand.
Former prime minister Bob Hawke dined at the restaurant with his daughter. Credit: Patrick Riviere/Getty Images
Robert said the restaurant’s exotic flavours and authentic approach were a drawcard for “adventurous” diners including a reviewer from the Melbourne Herald who famously wrote about “blinking back with hot-water tears” after sampling one of their spicy curries.
Other famous diners followed including then prime minister Bob Hawke, the Dalai Lama, John Farnham, and Jimmy Barnes.
Robert recalled a memorable visit from Hawke: “His daughter was a good customer of ours, and she said, ‘I’m bringing my dad’.”
“This man came in, it was Bob Hawke. If we’d known it was him, we would have put him at a more private table, but he was right in front of the door.
“Everyone that came into the restaurant, the first person they saw was the prime minister having dinner with his daughter.”
Prapa and Robert Larkin with one of their children outside their restaurant. Credit: Robert Larkin
After eight years, the Larkins relocated Bahn Thai to a larger, more private space on Commercial Road, Prahran, but the restaurant’s demands began to take a toll on their family life, Robert said.
“At that stage, we had three children at home. Grandma had come down from Thailand to look after the kids. But you don’t see your children; you have a family life, or you have a restaurant,” he said.
The couple passed the business to Prapa’s nephew before it again changed hands.
Today, the couple lives by the sea in Mount Martha, travelling often to Thailand, trying new dishes, and reflecting on the journey that made them pioneers of Thai cuisine in Australia.
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