Coconut Grove

Small nice venue. Simple and totally fine but not special. Seems clean. Regular Thai food. Small prices. You might feel stuffed due to rather lower quality cooking. But fine. Stick to vegetarian dishes as the meat might be rather on the antibiotic side…

We were expecting good things from Coconut Grove from reading the other reviews but were ultimately disappointed, I am sad to say. The booking process was fine and we were surprised to find that the restaurant was actually quite big and could seat many small parties, so that there was a cosy feeling as well. The food was actually okay — a couple of us shared the mix starter — a nice variety of 6 different items, a Tom Yum soup with chicken — hot and sour and full of lemongrass flavours, a pile of crispy won tons, an extremely fiery hot papaya salad and weirdly textured corn fritters, a few of the curries and coconut rice for our mains. The food for the price and location was great but unfortunately, the combination of our waiter taking down our order wrong and the bizarre way the kitchen worked, our food all came at different times and some of us were left hungry watching the other eat. And the restaurant wasn’t even that busy. The waiters also failed to show any empathy as to why we might be unhappy about going out for dinner but not eating at the same time. So for the poor service, this particular experience gets only 3 stars.

Excellent find. We had two starters, two mains and one soft drink for only £16! (Ridiculous prices for London).
The spicy noodles were so spicy and so good. The Tom yum soup was a standout! And the Thai curry was pretty good too.
I will definitely be back here. The place was almost empty on a Saturday so the service was excellent. I don’t understand how it wasn’t packed!

Great Thai food find. Even though the surroundings and décor can lead you to look forward to an average meal, our experience there exceptional. The food was of fantastic quality and the service, although not over attentive, was brilliant. Our unannounced birthday was greeted with great chocolate cake they went out to get and for which they refused to charge. We will be back

While I’ve never eaten in the restaurant, I have gotten delivery and take-​away (I went and collected it), and it has been quite good. The vegetable tempura was absolutely spot-​on. The vegetable spring rolls were quite good, and I have tried the Pad Thai (sans egg and fish sauce), and that was good. The Vegetable Pad Si Ew wasn’t very flavourful, and I had to add the rest of the sweet chilli sauce from the tempura to finish the lunch portion I got, but I think I would try other things before going back to it.
Portions are very good — plenty, but not so much you feel like you’ll be eating for days and days. I think the menu is lovely and big. The deliveries are made very quickly, and when I went in to order and collect my food one afternoon, the woman who took my order was really lovely.
Since we recently moved into a flat in the area, we are so happy to have such a wonderful Thai place so nearby. We’ll return… and often.

I and my husband are regular of the restaurant. We feel that we are lucky to have a nice thai restaurant in Highbury. We never had a bad meal here. Their starters are excellent especially prawn tempura and chicken satay are my favourite. We are now adding squid and crispy duck (however, I didn’t enjoy with tamarind duck) to our starters as they are new on the menu. Weeping tiger is a good choice as a main. Pad thai is just perfect. On a side note that I use to like their green interior it was more authentic and warmer than now. Also they have no more serving pla rad prik which is disappointing. However, this place still deserves a 5star whit it’s fresh and tasty meals and friendly service.

So. I was going to give them 3 stars, but then I realised I would never go back there and if you roll over 3 stars the rating suggestion is A-​OK. Nope, it’s not. I got takeout early on a thursday and thought at first that might have to do with the quality of the food, but then I remembered there were orders coming in and someone was delivering food so the kitchen must have been open.
I should also add that I had been craving Thai food all day and was STARVING. Like ‘I needed a beer to carry me over from 5 – 530 when they opened’ staving. And thus also a little tipsy — all of which should have really made me inhale everything regardless. Nope.
I got the som tam salad, the soft shell crab and the pad thai. Came to 17 pounds which I guess is ok.
The som tam salad ended up being the only thing that was even remotely decent. It was sour and sweet and a bit crunchy. The only drawback were the enormous green chili pieces hidden in with the beans that made it alternatively mild/​very spicy depending on what bite you got and made you fear anything green.
I usually love softshell crab. LOVE it. I also love anything deep fried. This one, however, was just oily. Literally, it just tasted like oil and left an oily film on my hands and even inside of my mouth. There wasn’t much crab taste at all. I didn’t finish it which is crazy. The sauce that came with it was a bit of a travesty — it was one of those sweet-​chili sauces in the pre-​packaged sealed containers and was just sweet with no other taste.
And the pad thai. I dont even know where to start. Owing to above starvingness I should have just inhaled all the carbs I could get but no. Also a did not finish. First of all there was no lime or peanuts anywhere near the pad thai. That’s kind of the best part, the little peanut pieces and then you can squeeze some lime? No. Also no dried shrimp anywhere — i promise, i looked! And it literally had no taste. None. The noodles were lumped together and just so bland. I keep trying to write more about the pad thai but I can’t think of anything except that I dunked what I could in the leftover som tam juice and then couldn’t bring myself to finish the rest.
So basically I didn’t finish 2 out of the three dishes I usually love, which is a bit crazy.
I am writing this in the morning feeling hungry and then I remember why — becasue I didn’t finish any of my food last night. I’m not sure if I just caught them on a bad night or what, but it was not good food, it was not fresh, flavourful and especially the pad thai I kind of want to take back to them and have them explain to me what on earth that was.

I really like how this place looks from the inside. There are four areas you could sit in, one of which is the garden, all of them very peculiar because on different levels and in rooms of different shapes.
All of the food we had was pretty good, some of it was delicious (in particular the green monk fish curry, coconut rice, and a yummy peanut sauce that came with one of the starters, as well as a salad in that starter).

This has become our standard Thai stop. We recently moved to the Highbury area and this place is easily the best quality to price ratio around.
The service was quick and very friendly and the atmosphere is quaint and welcoming.
The food was delicious and even adventurous. Their cooks aren’t afraid to experiment in the kitchen, it seems.
Location is a huge plus for us but because that’s situational and subjective it isn’t included in my rating but I still give Coconut Grove Café am easy 5 stars.

Not open during hours of operation listed. Nor its sister Thai restaurant two storefronts down. Please update your hours of operation.

Perfection. Fresh, authentic, spicy, quality, generous portions, clean dining room… that’s all there is to say.
The Tom Kah soup is just… I have no words. I have soup down my shirt from slurping and maybe a noodle in my hair… but no words. Soooo good. The perfect blend of creamy/​sour/​spicy/​hint of sweet. Fresh vegetables, tender chicken breast, prominent lemongrass overtone.
I see myself here a lot in the future.

Tried this place for the first time last night with my partner. We both love thai food and were super excited to try it for the first time in London.

As our first choice we ordered one of the starter platers. It was only slightly cheaper than some of the meal options so we had pretty high expectations for it. I must say we were blown away by it. Along with the traditional springs rolls ect that youd expect to see on any thai starter platter there was an amazing chicken noodle salad that truely just melted in out mouths. It was divine.

For our mains we ordered one chicken and one mussle green curry. Not very adventerous, I know, but we felt like playing it safe and sticking with some old favourites for our first london thai exprience. We were both a little dissapointed with how small the portions were– especially because the price for the curries didnt include rice. I had the chicken curry and thought it was quite good. It was overflowing with eggplant and zuccini and had a good amount of chicken. I would have liked my curry to be a little nore spicy though as this is one of the reasons I picked this particular dish. My patner had the mussle curry and found it really salty. She added some of the drinking water on the table to her dish which made it better. On the up side her curry had lots of mussles and she found it to be the perfect hotness.
All and all it was a pretty good place, nothing amazing but definitly not a dissapointment. It also has an incredible outdoor rooftop garden which made it feel like we were no longer in London.

This used to be one of my favourite lunch time venues and you can’t beat this place for value-​for-​money with a starter and main for £5.95. The food can be good here but there are perhaps better (maybe not cheaper) places to eat Thai food.
The only downside is the the quality of the food varies and boy does it make a difference. There are some days when the food is great, but with increasing regularity, there are others when the quality of the food has been subpar, particularly the quality of ingredients, such as vegetables and the inexplicable overuse of salt in their main dishes — it really is that noticeable on the palate. Even when you ask for «no salt» it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
I would recommend if in the locality (they also own the restaurant about ⁴⁄₅ doors down the road) purely because of the value-​for-​money. Personally, I will lessen my visits for the sake of my blood pressure!

Amazing food! Really lovely garden terrace out the back. An absolutely hidden gem.

This is a fabulous place to try out thai food. the quality is consistent, the service is quick & food portions really good & lunch time deal at £5:95 for two courses is fantastic.
The Tom Yum soup hmm nice & spicy, the Mia siam noodles with tofu is fantastic as is most of its dishes…
I eat here regularly. so if you love thai, want it in a comfy atmosphere with a terrace to the rear & excellent value for money try this out. Highly Recommended.

Really nice Thai takeaway, independantly owned, good standard of thai food to take away. They also own the Thai Café a few doors down.

A sweet little Thai café.
£5.95 lunch special for two courses.
The Tom Yum soup was the best I’ve had in ages. Fresh tasting and well balanced with clear flavours of lemongrass, kaffir lime and with a great chilli kick, just on the right side of the pleasure /​pain threshold. Perfect.
Drunken noodles with pork and veggies, freshly made with broad rice noodles.
Yum.
Quick service and friendly welcome. There are more tables around the back so it’s bigger than it looks.
Better than some fancier upmarket Thai places I’ve been to and great value. That’s a winning formula.
Thanks to Siobahn K’s Unilocaling to help point me to this café.

Service can sometimes be a bit ropey, but this a fabulous little place for lunch. Used to go for the 2 course lunch menu with some tiger beer with colleagues on a Friday. The drunken noodles were incredibly scrummy. It was always mobbed, but they fitted you in. Incredibly good value.

Really lovely Thai restaurant with an authentic Vibe about it.
Just spent a lovely summers lunchtime in their garden — the £5.95 two course lunch deal was great value, I had some excellent Tempura vegetables followed by a huge & tasty plate of Port «Drunken Noodles».
Would have given 5* if it not for the service, which although friendly was a little slow.