Thana Trepetch, co-owner of Spoon+Fork Thai Kitchen, said that for her, food has always been connected to family.
“I grew up in a big extended family [where] everybody cooks, and we always have food on the table,” she said.
Trepetch, originally from Bangkok, has both Thai and Chinese family members. She said when her family celebrated holidays, including Thai and Chinese new years, the whole family cooked together, making some of the same dishes served at Spoon+Fork today, such as Panang curry and Thai fried rice.
Offering food is also a gesture of welcome for guests and strangers in Thai culture. Trepetch said she wants her customers to feel welcomed, too, including diners with dietary needs like veganism and gluten sensitivity.
Trepetch lived in McKinney, where she and her husband, Timothy, started Silk Road restaurant, before moving to Austin. They began looking for opportunities to start an Austin-area eatery after the move. Trepetch said the development of Belterra Village, where the restaurant is located, created the opportunity to open Spoon+Fork, which she co-owns with her husband and her mother, Mona Tapaneeyakul.
Trepetch said many of their customers are unfamiliar with Thai cuisine, and that makes visits to the eatery an educational experience, introducing them to classic Thai dishes such as pad Thai, Thai basil curry and specialty stir-fries.
“People [in the Dripping Springs area] consider us something new,” she said. “In other areas of Austin, like downtown, people might be more familiar with the food already, but around here we take it as a challenge to introduce people to a new kind of cuisine.”
Education, Trepetch said, continues with the restaurant’s name, which is a reference to the utensils most popularly used to consume Thai food—with a spoon in the right hand, and a fork in the left.
She said that other customers who may have enjoyed Thai cuisine in the past often ask why certain ingredients are different than what they are used to.
“If you try one restaurant, and you like it, you might have a perception that is the authentic Thai dish, and that every Thai dish is going to be like that,” she said.
Authenticity, however, Trepetch said, has more to do with perception than hard-and-fast rules. Because it can be hard to access ingredients in the United States that are easy to come by in Thailand, Trepetch said some degree of improvisation is always required.
Trepetch said she and her husband find inspiration by traveling and exploring other cuisines, such as on a recent trip to Peru. Comparing food sampled abroad to offerings in Texas, Trepetch said they note the differences in ingredients and learn about practical substitutions for classic ingredients.
“Even in Thailand, I grew up eating a dish which might be the same or different depending on the part of Thailand,” Trepetch said. “Because it’s so spread out, you know—just like the U.S.”
