WSLA: Anajak Thai - Wine & Spirits Magazine

WSLA: Anajak Thai


Justin Pichetrungsi has taken his father’s traditional Thai Cuisine and transformed it into something wholly his own. (Photo: Justin Pichetrungsi, Anajak Thai)

When we first wrote about Anajak in 2019, Justin Pichetrungsi had just taken over his father Ricky’s restaurant in Sherman Oaks; the menu was still traditional Thai staples. His first order of business was to install a natural wine list that, to put it mildly, disrupted expectations. In the years since, Pichetrungsi, as chef, owner, and beverage slinger created a hybrid Thai restaurant with a free-wheeling aesthetic that uses the traditional menu as a launchpad to propel him down seductive and thought-provoking pathways, tossing off Thai tacos on Tuesday and a developing quasi-omakase side menu designed to highlight and isolate Thailand’s fiery, dramatic flavors. The restaurant has garnered an almost unprecedented number of accolades, including the Los Angeles Times’ 2022 Restaurant of the Year, a place among the New York Times’ America’s Best Restaurants for 2022, a Michelin Plate, and a Food & Wine’s Ten Best New Chefs honor for Pichetrungsi. John Cerasulo now directs the wine program, filled with chenins and Muscadets, electric rieslings and chilled reds, all of a natural persuasion and every bit as focused and precise as Pichetrungsi’s myriad flavors. 

Anajak Thai is part of our Top 30 LA List of 2023. Read the whole story here.


14704 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

(818)501-4201

Patrick J. Comiskey covers US wines for Wine & Spirits magazine, focusing on the Pacific Northwest, California’s Central Coast and New York’s Finger Lakes.


This story appears in the print issue of Spring 2023.
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