Glenlivet becomes home to hit Thai restaurant The Croft Inn after former London Underground driver and hotel chef pursue dream lifestyle
Glenlivet is best known as being home to one of Moray’s many world-class distilleries but in recent years an unassuming pub and restaurant has given visitors the world over another reason to travel to the area.
The Croft Inn was once a traditional countryside establishment in rural Speyside but is now, perhaps unexpectedly, home to an authentic Thai restaurant.
It is the brainchild of Chris Brown, a former London Underground driver from Dorset, and Thai native Pariwat Prajudtane, or Nat as he is better known.
The couple have been together for 18 years but admit they never expected to become restaurant owners when they moved to Scotland in 2021.
Chris said: “We bought The Croft Inn without any experience really.
“Nat has worked in hotels and I was a London Underground driver.
“I spent 24 years, seven months, three weeks and one day on the front of a train with no one to talk to.
“Then covid hit and we thought perhaps we could come up and do a holiday let with a house as part of our plans for semi-retirement.”
The pair spent four months travelling across Scotland looking for an ideal location but nothing caught their eye.
That was until Nat suggested they start looking for a commercial premises instead.
Having looked in Tomintoul initially, a chance encounter with a woman in the village’s Post Office led them to a pub with a restaurant in the heart of Glenlivet: The Croft Inn.
“We’ve kind of accidentally ended up buying a pub as our retirement plan,” Chris joked.
“I always tell people it’s gone horribly wrong but as it turns out, Nat is rather good at cooking and I love chatting with customers.”
They completed the takeover of the business in November 2021, initially serving a mix of dishes.
By April the following year, however, The Croft Inn had become a fully fledged Thai restaurant.
“We just realised that people aren’t going to drive all the way out here for a meal unless it’s actually worth the drive,” Chris said.
“And it turns out that people will drive miles for good Thai food so I feel like we’ve got a real USP.”
A small menu using locally sourced ingredients has proven a hit not only with locals but with visitors from around the world.
The business was featured in an article in a New York magazine and caught the attention of a Mexican social media influencer named Marco Beteta.
“We had no idea who he was until he posted about us to his 200,000 followers,” Chris added.
The Croft Inn has grown in the short period Chris and Nat have been in charge.
They have recruited Khunrada Saiyat, also from Thailand, as kitchen manager to help with the workload and are planning on opening five days a week due to increasing demand.
Despite the success, Chris insists the business is being run as a “lifestyle”.
He said: “Any money we make goes back into the inn. We’ve invested six figures into the kitchen because without the right setup, Nat couldn’t do what he does best.
“Had we known what we were doing, we probably wouldn’t have bought it.
“As it turns out though, having a unique selling point as a Thai restaurant is the only way this pub could have survived.
“It doesn’t always sink in and sometimes it feels like a dream but it’s great fun obviously.”
