🍜 Food & Drink in Chiang Mai

The most famous roast chicken restaurant in Chiang Mai — a simple open-air roadside spot where whole free-range chickens are slow-roasted over charcoal and served with sticky rice, somtam (green papaya salad), and the best dipping sauce in the north. A true local institution with a queue out the door daily. An unmissable budget feast for solo food travelers.

📍5/1 Moo 2, Super Highway Road, Nong Pa Khrang, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50000

A refined northern Thai restaurant in a beautiful restored wooden house in the Old City, run by a team passionate about preserving authentic Lanna culinary traditions. Serves an exceptional tasting menu of northern Thai dishes — wild mushroom curry, pork laab, fermented rice noodles — in an intimate, candlelit setting. Excellent wine list for the region.

📍38/2 Moon Muang Rd, Si Phum, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200

A stylish café-restaurant inside The House complex near Wat Phra Singh — part boutique home-goods store, part excellent Thai and international restaurant. Serves both Thai street food classics and innovative dishes in a beautifully designed shophouse interior. The courtyard garden is one of the loveliest dining spots in the Old City, especially in the evenings.

📍199 Moon Muang Rd, Si Phum, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200

Chiang Mai's most beloved restaurant for authentic northern Thai (Lanna) cuisine — a 40-year-old institution in a traditional wooden house in the Old City. Famous for its Khao Soi, Khanom Chin Nam Ngiao, Gaeng Hanglay, and the extraordinary lunch buffet of northern Thai dishes. Anthony Bourdain featured it. Solo travelers always find a warm welcome here.

📍112 Ratchamankha Rd, Phra Singh, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200

The best khao soi in Chiang Mai — and that is saying something in the city that invented it. A tiny local shop, outdoor tables, insane coconut curry noodle soup for under $2.

📍Charoen Prathet Rd, Chang Khlan, Chiang Mai

A Chiang Mai institution since the 1970s — a simple open-air restaurant in the Night Bazaar area famous for its rotisserie Isan-style gai yang (grilled chicken) spinning on spits outside the restaurant. Paired with sticky rice and nam jim jaew dipping sauce. Incredibly cheap, endlessly busy with locals, and one of the most satisfying meals in the city.

📍304 Charoennprathet Rd, Chang Khlan, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50100

A Chiang Mai institution since 1983 — a sprawling riverside restaurant and bar on the Ping River with live music every evening, an extensive Thai and Western menu, and a legendary atmosphere. The outdoor wooden deck over the river at sunset is one of the great dining experiences in northern Thailand. Solo travelers love the social, informal atmosphere.

📍9-11 Charoenrat Rd, Wat Ket, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50000

Chiang Mai's oldest and most authentic covered market — a vast, multi-storey 19th-century market hall known as Kad Luang (Great Market) where locals shop for everything from fresh produce and dried spices to hill tribe fabrics and household goods. The ground floor wet market is extraordinary. An unmissable slice of real Chiang Mai life, open from early morning.

📍95 Wichayanon Rd, Chang Moi, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50300