Blue Elephant, London’s most iconic Thai restaurant – and soon to be cooking school – has now relocated to its stunning home on Imperial Wharf.
On Friday 11th May, the new Blue Elephant will welcome a very special group of visitors, when monks from the Buddhapadipa Temple in Wimbledon, the first Thai Buddhist temple to be built in the UK, arrive to perform a beautiful traditional blessing ceremony.
The colourful and vivid occasion will provide a rare opportunity to witness a traditional Buddhist rite that encourages good fortune and prosperity for the new building and its inhabitants.
The monks will perform a blessing for the restaurant and the Suphannahong, the magnificent replica of the famous Royal Barge of Thailand which now takes pride of place in the restaurant’s Blue Bar. With its figurehead fashioned in the shape of a swan and intricately carved and gilded hull, it has been painstakingly carved out of a single trunk of teak by Thai master craftsmen.
The ceremony will start at 10am.
The new Blue Elephant has quickly found favour with customers and food critics alike. Of particular note has been the superb menu created by the renowned Thai chef Noroor Somany Steppe, the award-winning founder of the Blue Elephant group who has been regarded as the Culinary Ambassador of Thai Cuisine since 1980.
The stand alone cookery school on the first floor is due to open later this year. Run along the same lines as Blue Elephant’s very successful schools in Bangkok and Phuket, this facility will offer students a fascinating introduction to the wonders of Thai cuisine.
Blue Elephant, The Boulevard, Imperial Wharf,
Townmead Road, London, SW6 2UB
www.blueelephant.com/london
