There’s Thai, and then there’s Nipa. Housed in the eco-aware Lancaster Hotel (they’ve bee hives on the roof), the hotel’s unquestionable trump card is Nipa, an award-winning restaurant so achingly authentic its easy to forget you’re in the Northern Hemisphere. Consequently, slipping into a badly pronounced Thai dialect of ‘sawadee-kaaaas’ and ‘cup-un-cup’ is almost unavoidable. Sadly however, with views over a main road and the inevitable stream of red buses, you’re soon brought down to earth.

But that doesn’t mean taste buds can’t fully take flight here – a departure fully encouraged by the six female chefs who have been flown in from Bangkok’s prestigious Landmark Hotel (the sister venue to the Lancaster). And my, do they show how Thai food can be done; curries come bursting with complexity and layers of flavor, piquant pad Thai yields silky, oily noodles hiding opalescent prawns, fine battered soft shell crab melts in the mouth and shining scented scallops make one grateful to be alive. This is Thai dining at its absolute best – the amount of smiles, nods, grunts and gluttony which fill the room is proof of that. Better still, Nipa dispels the notion that hotel restaurants lack the x-factor: this place has ‘star’ written all over it.