Blue Elephant cooking class (Old Town)
Phuket Town · Food and markets · 4 h
4,500–5,415 THB ≈ $136–164 · prix daté du 5 sept. 2026
Horaires: Morning class with market visit, about 08:30–13:30; afternoon class without market
Meilleur moment: The morning class — the market visit is the best part
Saison: Indoor; runs in rain
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Oui
The cooking school of the Blue Elephant restaurant, housed in the 1903 Phra Pitak Chinpracha mansion on Krabi Road: a market walk in the Old Town, then four or five royal-Thai dishes cooked at individual stations and eaten in the mansion. It is the most expensive cooking class on the island at roughly 4,500–5,400 THB per person depending on the reseller, and the most polished. The alternatives — Phuket Thai Cookery School by the sea at Siray, and the small family-run classes in Kata and Rawai — teach the same curries for around half the price with less grandeur.
Source: GetYourGuide and Viator listings, 2026: 4,500–5,415 THB per person for the half-day class with market tour
Boat Avenue Friday market (Cherngtalay)
Bang Tao · Food and markets · 1.5 h
Free prix daté du 5 sept. 2026
Horaires: Fridays 16:00–21:00
Meilleur moment: 17:30, before the Laguna crowd arrives
Saison: Open-air; cancelled or thin in heavy rain
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Non · Gratuits
The Friday-evening market at the Boat Avenue shopping strip at the entrance to Laguna in Bang Tao: a hundred or so stalls of food, crafts, clothes and drinks along the avenue, with live music and the Boat Avenue restaurants and bars open on both sides. It is the social evening of the week for the Bang Tao and Layan villa crowd and the resort guests; the food skews international as much as Thai. Free entry. Porto de Phuket, the open-air mall across the road, has the supermarket and more restaurants for the rest of the week.
Source: No admission per visitor guides, 2025–2026
Chillva Market
Phuket Town · Food and markets · 2 h
Free prix daté du 5 sept. 2026
Horaires: 17:00–23:00, Thursday to Saturday are the full market days
Meilleur moment: Friday or Saturday from 18:00
Saison: Partly under roof; the outdoor stalls close early in heavy rain
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Non · Gratuits
The hip night market on Yaowarat Road in Samkong, north of the Old Town: shipping-container shops, a lawn with live music, and food stalls that lean towards the young Phuket crowd — grilled meats, sushi, Thai desserts, bubble tea, craft beer. It is cheaper and less touristy than the Patong markets and more curated than Naka. The core days are Thursday to Saturday, though some stalls trade on other evenings. No entry fee; a meal for two is a few hundred baht. Fifteen minutes from the Old Town, thirty from Patong on a good night.
Source: No admission; dishes typically 50–150 THB per visitor guides, 2025
Naka Weekend Market
Phuket Town · Food and markets · 2 h
Free prix daté du 5 sept. 2026
Horaires: Saturday and Sunday 16:00–22:00; a smaller street-food market Monday–Friday 16:00–21:00
Meilleur moment: Saturday around 18:00
Saison: Largely under roof, so it runs in rain; the aisles are hot in April
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Oui · Gratuits
The island's biggest weekend market, on the bypass south of Phuket Town near Wat Naka: hundreds of stalls of clothes, phone cases, souvenirs, counterfeit everything and a large covered food section with the full run of Thai market food. Open Saturday and Sunday from four in the afternoon, with a weekday street-food market on the same site. Entry is free. It is crowded, cheap and unglamorous, which is the point; go hungry, eat your way along the food aisle, and expect to haggle on anything not food. Taxis from the west coast take 30–45 minutes.
Source: No admission per the market's site, 2026
Phuket Indy Night Market
Phuket Town · Food and markets · 1.5 h
Free prix daté du 5 sept. 2026
Horaires: Wednesday to Friday 16:00–22:30
Meilleur moment: Thursday or Friday evening, as a walk from the Old Town
Saison: Open-air with covered food stalls
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Non · Gratuits
A small midweek night market on the Limelight Avenue site on Dibuk Road, a few minutes' walk from the Old Town: vintage clothes, handmade jewellery, student stalls and a row of cheap, good food stalls with tables, plus a beer garden with live music. It runs Wednesday to Friday, which makes it the Old Town's answer for evenings when the Sunday walking street is not on. Free entry; a meal is under 200 THB. Lower-key than Chillva and much smaller than Naka, and the nearest market to the Old Town hotels.
Source: No admission per visitor guides, 2025–2026
Phuket Thai Cookery School (Siray)
Phuket Town · Food and markets · 5 h
2,200–2,500 THB ≈ $67–76 · prix daté du 5 sept. 2026
Horaires: Day class about 09:00–15:00; hotel pickups earlier
Meilleur moment: Any day; classes run daily
Saison: Covered kitchen by the beach on Koh Siray; runs in rain
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Oui
A long-established cooking school on Koh Siray, the island east of Phuket Town, with an open kitchen on the beach: a morning market visit, five dishes cooked and eaten, a recipe book and hotel transfers from the main areas. It is the mid-priced option at roughly 2,200–2,500 THB and the one most people book; the class sizes are larger than the boutique schools but the teaching is thorough. A full day with transfers from the west coast. The Blue Elephant class in the Old Town is the luxury version at about twice the price.
Source: Reseller listings and 2026 cooking-class comparisons: roughly 2,200–2,500 THB for the day class with market visit and transfers
Rawai seafood market and cook-shops
Rawai · Food and markets · 1.5 h
— Aucun prix daté enregistré
Horaires: Market roughly 10:00–21:00; the restaurants opposite until about 22:00
Meilleur moment: Sunset, with a table across the road facing the pier
Saison: Year-round; the catch is bigger in the calm months
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Oui
The row of stalls on Rawai's beach road where the sea-gypsy fishing community sells the day's catch — prawns, crab, squid, snapper, shellfish — by weight, and the restaurants across the road cook it for a per-kilo fee. Prices move daily with the catch and are not published, so none is shown here; you weigh, you agree, you pay, and you eat with the longtails pulled up on the sand opposite. It is the island's best seafood evening for the money and the reason Rawai's expat community never cooks fish at home. The pier at the end is where the longtails to Coral Island and Racha leave.
Sunday Walking Street (Lard Yai), Thalang Road
Phuket Town · Food and markets · 2.5 h
Free prix daté du 5 sept. 2026
Horaires: Sundays 16:00–22:00; stalls set up from about 15:00
Meilleur moment: Arrive by 17:00 to eat before the 19:00 crush
Saison: Runs in rain under the arcades, but the street stalls thin out in a downpour
Enfants: Oui · Pluie: Non · Gratuits
The island's biggest weekly event: every Sunday Thalang Road in the Old Town closes to cars from late afternoon and fills with several hundred stalls of street food, crafts, second-hand clothes and buskers, with the shophouse cafés open on both sides. It is a local market as much as a tourist one — Phuket families come for dinner — and the food is the point: grilled squid, Hokkien mee, coconut ice cream, roti, sugar-cane juice, priced for locals. Parking is hopeless after 18:00; take a taxi or park at Saphan Hin and walk. The rest of the week Thalang Road is simply the Old Town.
Source: No admission; street food from about 20–100 THB a portion per visitor guides, 2025