Review: curry at Thaitastic Thai, Hereford Butter Market

It is one of those places that I am sure every Herefordian has visited at one time or another, or even just walked through to get from High Town to Maylord Street in the dry.

It is a bit of a gem in the city, with plenty of businesses selling all sorts of items from pet food to leather goods. It is also home to butchers and greengrocers, among other businesses.

There are also businesses offering services such as hairdressing and key cutting.

The city centre building has been home to some of these businesses for decades, but in recent years has undergone something of a regeneration after falling into a bit of a decline around a decade ago.

It was sold to local businessman Darren Sockett in 2015, after he put his business case to a panel of councillors and officers from Herefordshire Council and Hereford City Council that year.

His plan was to turn the Butter Market into a hub for small business start-ups to complement its retail offering.

And it does, so far, appear to have been a great success, with a number of businesses launching at stalls in the Butter Market before striking out on their own in premises elsewhere in the city.

These have included Charcuterie Hereford, which moved out of the Butter Market after building up a base of fans in 2022 to its own premises in Widemarsh Street, and Meze, which opened its own restaurant in West Street in 2019 before closing due to the pandemic and health reasons in 2021.

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I paid an impromptu visit to the Butter Market for lunch with my husband, Andy, and 12-year-old son Henry on Saturday (September 21) largely in a bid to escape the rain in Hereford.

We had not really planned on eating out, so we were not looking to spend a lot of money on a meal, and the foodie stalls at the Butter Market, which I have walked past plenty of times but never stopped at, sounded a much nicer option than McDonald's or similar. 

We are all big fans of Thai food, so we headed straight to Thaitastic Thai, which moved into the market in 2018 after taking part in pop-ups at the site.

Unsurprisingly, given the small space it has to work with, the business doesn't offer a huge menu. But what it does offer is a tasty selection of dishes to suit any Thai food lover. 

I settled on a chicken green curry while Andy picked a sea bass curry and Henry a beef kao pad. We were offered the option of hot, medium, or mild for each, and we all chose different spice levels, which was a nice option to have.

These were all priced from £6.50 to £7.50 per dish, which seems very cheap compared to many restaurants.

Henry was very pleased with his milkshake from Thaitastic Thai (Image: Hereford Times)

We also ordered a bag of Thai prawn crackers, a green tea, a can of coke, and a (seriously sweet!) strawberry milkshake, which Henry announced was "amazing".

Our total bill, which we paid on ordering, came to £31.20.

All of the Butter Market's food concessions share a group of tables, which customers can just pick a seat at. Once you have ordered, you are handed a little black device which will beep when your order is ready to call you back to collect your tray.

Henry trying his hand at arty food photography at Hereford Butter Market (Image: Hereford Times)

When our food did arrive, it both looked and smelled fabulous. Both curries came with a portion of rice, and while the vegetables (courgette, bamboo shoots, and peppers) were the same, they had very distinctly different tastes. 

The portions are, perhaps unsurprisingly given the price, not huge, but they were the perfect size for a lunch dish for me. Everything was really well cooked, and absolutely delicious.

Henry's kao pad, a rice-based dish, also hit the mark, with plenty of beef and vegetables mixed in. He definitely had no problem making it disappear!

The Butter Market itself was also actually quite a nice place to sit and eat while watching the business of the day going on.

We will definitely be paying another visit!