Most restaurant origin stories begin with the food. This one begins with a hotel corridor. Kanokkorn Lamlert, known as Olive, was a marketing manager. Patrick Moukarzel was a general manager. They were working at the same property on Koh Samui, and the rest, as they tell it, was destiny.
Patrick's career before Samui covered the kind of ground that luxury hospitality demands: general management roles across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Maldives. Olive had built a marketing career in Bangkok before taking a position on the island. Neither came to Samui with the intention of opening a restaurant. Both came to work for someone else. They met, fell in love, and decided to stop working for hotels and start working for themselves.
The Thai Tapas opened in Fisherman's Village almost four years ago. The concept takes traditional Thai flavours and reimagines them as shareable plates, the kind of format that lets a table of friends or a couple try six things instead of committing to one. In its short life the restaurant has built a strong local reputation and received an unexpected endorsement: during the filming of The White Lotus on Koh Samui, the production cast and crew patronised the restaurant repeatedly. It is the kind of recognition that cannot be bought and that Olive and Patrick are careful not to oversell. They know the food has to be the reason people come back.
The Thai Tapas
Thai tapas with inventive flair.
The Business Story
What brought you to Koh Samui?
For most people who end up running a business on a Thai island, the answer involves a plan. For Olive and Patrick, the answer is simpler and less planned than that.
"Destiny. We both moved here to just work for a hotel. But after we met, love made us stay. We met here, fell in love with each other and we now live here."
One word, then the explanation. A marketing manager from Bangkok and a French hotelier with a career spanning four continents, both posted to the same island, both ending up in the same building. The restaurant came after the relationship, not before it. That order matters, because it means The Thai Tapas was built by two people who had already chosen Samui for personal reasons before they chose it for professional ones.
What does your typical working day look like?
The rhythm of a restaurant run by a couple divides naturally. Patrick handles the sourcing; Olive handles the operations. The day has a shape that most island restaurant owners would recognise, with one difference: they make time for themselves before they make time for the kitchen.
"Patrick will usually go to the market in the morning. We both keep healthy and go to the fitness centre. After lunch, we check the restaurant for lunch service. We take a break and go back to work around 18.00. Once we are done, we hang out with friends for a couple of drinks."
The fitness centre before the kitchen is a deliberate choice, not a luxury. Running a restaurant on a tropical island is physically demanding work spread across a long day, and a couple who share the business share the fatigue as well. The drinks with friends at the end of the night are the social anchor that keeps island life from becoming all-consuming.
What is the hardest lesson you have learned running a business on the island?
Olive and Patrick came to Samui from the luxury hotel world, where infrastructure is someone else's problem. Running their own restaurant on an island where the power grid and the water supply have their own ideas about reliability was a different kind of management challenge entirely.
"To adapt quickly to the challenges we sometimes face living on the island: several power cuts, water shortages, heavy rain and wind. Having said that, it is much easier to run a restaurant business than to manage a luxury resort."
The last sentence is the one that stays. A general manager who ran properties across four continents finds a single restaurant in Fisherman's Village easier than a 200-room resort. The scale changed; the standards did not. The power cuts are just a new category of problem to solve, and they solve them faster than a corporate hotel could.
Olive and Patrick's Samui
A couple who met on Koh Samui and chose to stay have a different relationship with the island from someone who arrived with a business plan. Their picks are the places that have become part of the fabric of their life here, not the places they would recommend to a magazine.
The Origin Story Spot
The first memorable meal on the island was not a date night or a grand opening. It was a staff lunch during a pandemic. The pre-opening team at the hotel where Olive and Patrick were both working organised a welcome meal at Khao Hom during Covid, back when the island was quiet and the restaurant scene was running on a skeleton.
"It was during Covid, the pre-opening team that was already on board organised a welcome lunch here."
A team lunch during a lockdown-era pre-opening. The kind of meal that stays in memory not because the food was extraordinary but because the circumstances were. Everything that followed for Olive and Patrick on Samui started from a table at Khao Hom.
Khao Hom
Authentic Southern Thai cooking near Samui Airport, known for generous portions and sunset views.
The Everyday Ritual
Most restaurant owners on this island have a regular lunch spot, a coffee ritual, a place they go to eat someone else's cooking. Olive and Patrick are the exception.
"Mainly at home. We don't go out much during the day."
A couple who spend their evenings running a restaurant together have a straightforward relationship with daytime eating: they do it at home, quietly, before the working day takes over. The honesty of it is disarming. Their everyday ritual is the absence of one, and for two people who share both a kitchen and a household, the privacy of a meal without customers is part of the point.
The Escapist Beach
Thursdays are the day off. The destination, almost every week, is the same.
"We come here almost every Thursday as it's our off day. We love the beach here. It's Choeng Mon beach."
A couple who work together six days a week need a place that is genuinely separate from the restaurant and from Fisherman's Village. Carnival Beach Village on Choeng Mon gives them that. A different beach, a different part of the island, a different energy from the strip where they spend every other day of the week. The regularity of the Thursday visit says as much about the venue as it does about the couple: they go back because the place earns it week after week.
Carnival Beach Village
Tranquil beachside bliss for all.
The Celebration Dinner
When a French luxury hotelier and a Bangkok-born restaurateur want to mark a milestone, the table they book is at a French restaurant. The logic is personal rather than patriotic.
"One of the best French restaurants in town. The decor and atmosphere are outstanding."
Patrick grew up with French food. Olive fell in love with it through Patrick. When the moment calls for something special, they go to Le Steak Frites, and the fact that a couple who run a Thai restaurant choose a French one for their own celebrations is exactly the kind of detail that makes this series worth reading. It is not a conflict of interest; it is a compliment paid by people who understand food professionally.
Le Steak Frites
Parisian steak frites in Fisherman's Village.
The Out-of-Towner Flex
When friends visit from overseas and Olive and Patrick want to show them Samui at its most honest, they skip the resort restaurants and go to a local seafood spot by the beach.
"We love a super fresh seafood by a beautiful beach."
From a couple who run a Thai restaurant, the flex is not the fanciest table on the island. It is the freshest fish, in the simplest setting, by the water. Krua Chao Baan delivers that. The choice tells visiting friends something about what the island is really like when the resort veneer is set aside.
Krua Chao Baan
A Michelin-recognized seaside Thai seafood spot with breezy beach views.
The Late-Night Pour
After the last table clears and the kitchen is closed, Olive and Patrick walk to their neighbourhood bar. The choice is local in the truest sense: it is close to home, run by people they know, and built around the kind of evening that involves a pool table and familiar faces.
"French-Belgian bar. It's in our neighbourhood. We play pool and meet our friends here."
A French-Belgian bar in a Thai fishing village on a Gulf island, patronised by a Franco-Thai couple who run a Thai tapas restaurant around the corner. Samui's Fisherman's Village in one sentence. QR Bar and Burgers is where the working day ends and the private life begins, and for a couple who share both, the distinction matters.
QR Bar & Burgers
Casual burger bar near Fisherman Village with strong service and a relaxed local vibe.
Down to Business is a recurring series on samuibeachclub.com profiling the entrepreneurs, chefs, and operators who make Koh Samui work. If you run a business on the island and would like to be featured, get in touch at hello@samuibeachclub.com.
