Restaurateur Palisa Anderson is set to open Riceface, a new Thai lunch counter in Sydney's CBD, focusing on high-quality rice and farm-fresh ingredients.
Palisa Anderson knows good rice.. And it’s the ingredient that underpins the menu at her forthcoming venue Riceface, opening in the CBD very soon.. “You will know when you cook good quality rice at home – you will smell it,” she tells Broadsheet.. “At home I cook rice in a clay pot, or mho din.. I know when I need to go and turn off the heat because I can smell it.. Smell, especially for
good quality Thai jasmine rice, that’s number one.. Then, good clean grains.” The restaurateur, author and farmer (on her Byron Bay property Boon Luck Farm) leads Chat Thai’s Circular Quay and Galeries venues, started by her mum Amy Chanta in 1989.. The Galeries outpost will now be two venues, one kitchen – Chat Thai on one side, Riceface on the other.. “Us and Kinokuniya, I reckon, are the only original tenants from when the building
first opened,” says Anderson.. “1999!. It was the first Chat Thai in the city … what [my mum] wanted was a venue in the city to capture the Thai working crew.. So she opened that as the hot bar – which is still there – and that hot bar did very authentic Thai food.” The new spot will have “hawker-style things” on rice in your choice of four flavours.. To start, there’s plain, turmeric, chicken
fat and garlic, and a butterfly pea flower that’s a shock of blue.. “But the aromats we add to it will be all determined by the things that we grow on the farm.” These are destined to be topped with proteins like slow-poached chicken, braised beef and red char siu pork – but what makes these dishes Thai is the sauce.. “They’re going to be very unique.. If you go to Thailand, you’ll have nam
jim jaew, which is the smoky tamarind chilli sauce.. We’ll also have the yellow bean ginger garlic sauce for the chicken and rice, which is very different from the spring onion and ginger oil that you get in a Hainanese rice or a Singaporean-style chicken rice.. “We’re just taking it back, very simple, not 10 options on a bowl – just rice and a good protein, cooked really, really well, some delicious sauce (because Asians
love a good sauce) and your choice of a fine herb salad, some pickles or steamed greens.” There’ll also be a dairy-free coconut-milk soft serve.. “We make our own coconut cream, we press our own coconut milk – so we make our base from that.. It’s to die for.” Choose to have it topped with pandan custard, or with mangoes or lychees when they’re in season on the farm.. “Lee Tran Lam did this really
great article about rice, and she interviewed me for it.. One of the things I said was, ‘In most Asian cultures, or rice-eating cultures, the greeting when you meet anybody is “Have you eaten rice today?”’ And actually, I’m using that as my little slogan on my packaging, because it’s so cute.” Riceface is expected to open in The Galeries in late May 2026.. riceface.com.au
Palisa Anderson, Riceface, Thai food, Sydney dining, The Galeries