Aticha Lee has spent three decades working in her family’s Thai restaurants. Now, she’s opening a place of her own in South County in November. The menu at Thai Touch (5672 Telegraph) will be shaped by her commitment to sustainable, local, healthy ingredients and her mother’s skillful preparation of traditional dishes. Here’s what to know about the new restaurant.
The Background
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Lee grew up in Thailand, where her grandparents and mother all loved cooking. “I’ve been going to the market and shopping for my mom since I was a kid,” Lee says. In 1993, Lee moved to Chicago, where her mother and stepfather, Saiyud “Sally” and Art Lee, owned a Thai restaurant. Her mother had come to Chicago in the 1980s and already garnered more than a decade of experience in the restaurant industry, including helping manage the kitchen at Arun’s—the only Thai restaurant to win a James Beard Award at that time.
In 2004, the family moved to St. Louis and bought the Blue Elephant in Clayton (which subsequently closed, recently sold, and will be called The King Elephant Royal Thai Cuisine). In addition, Aticha’s siblings operate Thai 202 in the Central West End, which is owned by Sally Lee.
When Aitcha brought up the idea of opening her own restaurant, her 82-year-old mom enthusiastically replied, “Let’s do it!” Sally Lee will join Thai Touch as its executive chef.
The Atmosphere
After securing the location in Oakville, Aticha embarked on a year-long remodel with architect Helen Lee of TAO + LEE Associates. The restaurant’s simple style, with the feel of a Thai night market, is designed to match the authentic, homestyle food. “It’s been challenging,” Aticha says of the ongoing buildout, “but we haven’t had any big problems.” And she loves the look and feel. “Everything is a lot better than I imagined it.”
Lee’s goal throughout the process has been to support locally owned businesses as much as possible. She purchased her kitchen equipment through Ford Restaurant Supply and is currently freezing herbs that were grown in a family friend’s garden to use throughout the winter.
The farm-to-table cooking approach is an important principle for Lee, as is sustainability. She says it’s common sense for restaurateurs to do things such as recycling and investing in biodegradable packaging. For example, she will wrap some to-go items in banana leaves (pictured at right). “Even though banana leaves might be more expensive than plastic wrap, it looks nice and it’s sustainable,” Aticha explains. “I think it’s worth it.”
Aticha’s unshakable pragmatism is based on her 30 years of experience in hospitality. She has seen restaurants close through no fault of their own. In fact, the name Thai Touch comes from her family’s Chicago restaurants, which ultimately closed as the neighborhood around them changed. As a result, the family moved to St. Louis.
Aticha’s stepfather passed away three years ago, but she continues to feel his influence—and that’s why she decided to keep the same name and use the original font and bright red color for the logo at the entrance to the new restaurant.
The Menu
Aticha and her mother are still in the process of finalizing the menu ahead of Thai Touch’s opening in November. “It’s a new place, but it has old knowledge,” Aticha says. “We have wisdom about Thai cooking.” Along with popular favorites, such as pad Thai, curries, and sticky rice dishes, expect specialties such as salmon choo chee (pictured at right), a mild red curry with coconut milk. “In Thailand, we use another freshwater fish, but you can’t get it here. Salmon is perfect for this dish. And we have salmon in Thailand, too,” she says.
Dishes such as salmon choo chee illustrate how hard Aticha is working to balance the desire to serve the kinds of authentic dishes that Thai people would eat at home or on the street with the challenges of sourcing ingredients and finding the time for labor-intensive preparations.
For example, eventually she plans to add kao-moo-dong, a simple comfort food of barbecue pork with a boiled egg that’s popular in Bangkok and throughout southeast Asia but isn’t available in St. Louis yet. “But it’s complex preparation. There’s a lot of steps,” she explains. Likewise, Aticha plans to offer Hainon chicken (khao man gai in Thai) as a special to start. The chicken is steamed to make it tender and juicy inside, but it also needs to be perfectly crispy on the outside.
Aticha plans to serve seasonal dishes, including two noodle soups of beef and chicken, when Thai Touch opens later this fall and more salads and greens in the summer. And she’s adding her own take as well, especially healthier touches such as quinoa fried rice, steamed proteins, and more vegetarian and vegan options. “A lot of people are eating less meat,” she says. “My challenge is how to make it just as delicious.”
