Pride Month dining: Critic's guide to well-loved LGBTQ+-owned restaurants

When I think of restaurants with heartbeats, I think of places driven by family and good friends and great love stories. A few come to mind now during Pride Month, when we celebrate the contributions of America’s LGBTQ+ communities.

I can think of various LGBTQ+-owned restaurants that are not only driven by great love stories but good cooking as well. They are worthy of our attention year-round, particularly in June, when they most proudly glow.

Malakor Thai Café

Artist Billy Manthy and chef Noopy Areerak opened this charming Thai restaurant 11 years ago. It has been a go-to, neighborhood favorite in Northwood Village ever since. If you’ve ever had Malakor’s green papaya salad, you know why.

The married couple continues to draw inspiration from Areerak’s native Thailand, where he grew up amid the jasmine rice fields of Yasothon province in the northeastern part of the country. In fact, that is where Areerak and Manthy were remarried earlier this year in a traditional Thai ceremony.

The trip was a joyous one all around, Areerak says.

“I saw my mother for the first time 18 years,” the chef says.

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He and Manthy were first married in New York in 2013, two years after they opened Malakor in Northwood. Renewing their vows in Areerak’s hometown, surrounded by loved ones and blessed by local monks, “brings us to a complete circle,” Manthy said in a Facebook post.

The couple owns a string of South Florida restaurants, including the 6-year-old Kao Gang in Palm Beach Gardens, the months-old Malakor Thai Express in Loxahatchee, the 3-year-old Malakor Thai Isaan in Coral Gables and the upcoming Nour Thai in Oakland Park.

What dish to try there this summer: The Malakor Salad. It combines freshly shredded green papaya, peanuts, tomatoes, green beans, garlic, chili, lime juice and palm sugar and tops it with tempura shrimp. It’s the restaurant’s star dish, in my book. Then again, Malakor means papaya in Thai.

Malakor Thai Café: 425 25th St. in Northwood Village, West Palm Beach, 561-762-9070

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Table 26

Behold the stylish, welcoming restaurant built by Ozzie Medeiros and Eddie Schmidt. Their love story spans 27 years and it powers Table 26, the South Dixie Highway restaurant they opened in 2012.

They met at a stoplight in New York in 1995. On a Nantucket night 13 years later, Schmidt dropped to one knee at a Boston Pops concert and, before thousands of spectators, asked Medeiros the most important question of his life: “Will you marry me?”

Medeiros’ “yes” not only transformed their lives as a couple, it also set in motion the events that led to their opening of Table 26. In the modern lines of the restaurant named for the latitude of Palm Beach, their focus is on old-school hospitality.

What dish to try there this summer: Go for the T26 Signature Cheeseburger by executive chef Martha Encarnacion. It’s beautifully stacked and the smoked pepper aioli adds a dreamy touch.

Table 26: 1700 S. Dixie Hwy, West Palm Beach, 561-855-2660

Pizza Girls

Partners in all things life and hand-tossed pizza, Phoebe Reckseit and Jennifer Morales have been together since 1991, married since 2013. Together, they created one of the county’s most iconic pizzerias, first in downtown West Palm Beach, later in Palm Beach Gardens.

They’ve kept the flame alive even after closing the long-standing Clematis Street location in August 2020.

These days, their Pizza Girls story is told in a Gardens strip plaza, where a mural reflects their adventures and dreams.

“The rest is herstory,” it proclaims.

What to try there this summer: Pizza, of course! If you’re sharing with a group (or want leftovers), try the 16-inch, square Sicilian pie with your choice of toppings. The dough is proofed for 24 hours and twice-baked to achieve a crisp-bottom, fluffy pizza.

Pizza Girls: 10965 N. Military Trail. (in the Garden Square Shoppes by PGA Boulevard), Palm Beach Gardens, 561-812-2400

Chunkay

Welcome to Riviera Beach’s home for Trinidadian roti and doubles, an eatery and takeout shop that’s owned and operated by chef Wendy Tilkaran and her wife/business partner Evita Thomas.

They first opened the shop in Lake Worth Beach in late 2020, but moved it to its present location in May 2021.

A former cop with the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, Tilkaran followed her love and their shared culinary passion to South Florida in the spring of 2019. It turned out to be a lucky decision not only for her and Thomas, but also for those of us who love authentic Trinidadian soul cooking in Palm Beach County.

What dish to try there this summer: The flaky paratha bread or, of course, the rotis! Chef Wendy fills the soft, grilled, hand-clapped roti flatbreads with curried meats and veggies. Pair them with aromatic Trini-style sorrel juice for the full Chunkay experience.

Chunkay: 8344 Garden Rd., Riviera Beach, 561-473-3710  

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: LGBTQ+-owned restaurants In Palm Beach County: Critic's dining guide