Chef & Owner
Sebby Holmes
Sebby started cooking at thirteen in pub kitchens, training in British cuisine. After a journalism degree he moved to East Dulwich and, by complete coincidence, landed a job round the corner at Jane Alty’s The Begging Bowl in Peckham. That’s where he fell for Thai food: sour, salty, sweet and hot all at once, all in balance.
From there he became head chef at Smoking Goat in Soho, 2015’s most talked-about opening.
In 2015 he started Farang from the back of his car, trading at street food markets across London. A year later came a pop-up residency on Highbury Park. The reviews were good enough that he never left, and Farang has held a Michelin Bib Gourmand every year since 2019.
Farang means foreigner in Thai. We cook for flavour, not authenticity: Thai technique and balance, with the best Thai and British produce we can get our hands on.
With his brother Tony, Sebby also runs Payst, making Farang’s curry pastes and sauces for home cooks. In 2026 our Hung Lay curry paste won a Great Taste Golden Fork.
Cook Thai
Easy, simple, incredible flavours. Cook Thai brings Sebby’s no-fuss approach to Thai food to cooks of every level. It runs from snacks and nibbles to big sharing dishes like curried crab claws, and builds on everything we do in the restaurant, in a way that works at home.
Also available from Waterstones and Amazon.
Thai recipes often come with a long, off-putting ingredients list, so it ends up a cuisine for restaurants and takeaways rather than home. In Thai in 7, every dish uses seven ingredients or fewer, all from a normal supermarket. You get prawn pad Thai, king oyster mushroom curry, and crispy tofu with coconut cream and Thai basil: fast, fresh, fiery Thai food any night of the week.
Also available from Waterstones and Amazon.