12 Best Restaurants in The Gulf Coast Beaches, Thailand

This beachfront diner serves salads and sandwiches, both traditional and inventive. Among the latter are tasty vegetarian sandwiches baked inside a bread bowl.

This sleek, modern restaurant overlooking the Dusit Thani resort's expansive pool and shimmering Pattaya Bay offers an "international skewers" concept with a wide variety of Chinese, Thai, and Western takes on grilled meat, seafood, and vegetables on skewers.

Run by a friendly mother-and-daughter duo, this restaurant hides in a back alley near Pattaya Beach Road. In addition to breakfast favorites like omelets and fried eggs, they serve all-day brunch with choices like club sandwiches, fried chicken wings, and avocado salad with chicken breast. Cheap local and international beers are available as well. The streetside tables are a peaceful breakfast spot, perfect for catching the morning sun.

Pattaya's reputation as a top spot for sampling seafood is given fresh impetus at this lively restaurant. The venue is open daily for lunch, but it comes alive during dinnertime when gourmands flock to its seafood buffet (Wednesday through Sunday; B849 per person)—a kingly affair starring superfresh morsels served in an underwater-inspired space popping with eclectic artworks. Note that there is no a la carte dinner menu when there is a seafood buffet.

Hidden in plain sight on the way to an elephant camp and waterfall is this family-run Thai restaurant that brings a love of food, art (one of the owners is a multimedia artist and the decor reflects this), and music together under one canopy. Keep it classic with curries, stir-fries, or stuffed omelets—all fairly priced and full of flavor.

Beachfront trattorias don't come more inviting than this one. Pizza is the specialty of the house, and pies come in various thin-crusted, wood-fired guises. Perhaps the best thing about the place, though, is its ambience. You can literally feel the sand between your toes at the beachside setting while the views of the boats sailing in and out of Mae Haad Bay are unfailingly evocative. 

Using Elle & Vire's 70 years of French dairy expertise, this gem of a cafe and bakery puts out a range of high-quality croissants and house-blend coffee. Whether you like home-made raspberry croissants, chocolate croissants, lychee croissants, or green tea croissants, you're spoiled for choice. There are also heftier options like sourdough slices with tuna, and multi-grain bread with avocado sour cream sauce and bacon. Light wood finishes create a homey atmosphere.

For a different side of Pattaya, head north of the city to this beautiful, romantic seafood restaurant that sits right on the waterfront. The almost exclusively Thai clientele enjoys hand-picked lobster, tiger prawns, crab, oysters, and fish amid shimmering pools, palm trees, and sweeping bay views.

The alluring scent of fresh baked goods immediately delights all who enter this funky place. The owner, who picked up his baking skills while living and working in Germany, opened Nira's in the mid-1980s, before the island even had electricity.

Note and El, a Thai couple, run this lovely breakfast spot on the way from Thong Sala to Srithanu. The two of them specialize in home-made dim sum and Chinese herbs soup, but also serve steamed dumplings or rice soups with egg, fish, or pork. The teak interior of this open-sided Thai restaurant creates a homey atmosphere that locals appreciate, and traditional Thai coffee and tea invite you to linger. Prices are very reasonable, and the owners are always happy to chat. 

The homemade chocolate rolls and croissants at this bakery are fresh and tasty, and the decor featuring vintage Kellogg's boxes, toy soldier figurines, and cherry-red Sugar Bloom lettering evoke a quirky sense of Americana. The coffee, made with local, medium dark-roast beans, are great as well.

Organic vegetables take center stage at this teak and art-dominated place led by an acclaimed chef from Berlin. Begin your day with a freshly packed jar of chia pudding, a superfood bowl, or a chili-spiked Thai Greens smoothie, and come back later for an encyclopedic array of clean eats.