Phuket's luxury coast, and the only stretch of it where the food is a reason to come rather than a consolation. Twenty-odd kilometres of west-facing sand runs from Kamala in the south, through Surin and the hidden cove at Laem Singh, along the eight-kilometre sweep of Bang Tao, and out to Layan at the northern tip. Behind it sits Cherngtalay: a real Thai sub-district of temples, fresh markets and rubber smallholdings that has been colonised, at speed, by villa estates, co-working cafes and an open-air mall called Boat Avenue. The result is genuinely strange — Michelin-listed French and Neapolitan cooking on one side of the road, a Monday-and-Thursday produce market at a temple gate on the other, and beaches where the government demolished every beach bar and left the sand empty.
Who it's for: People who want a beach holiday with serious dinners. This is where the island's Michelin listings cluster outside Phuket Town — a Green Star farm-to-table kitchen, modern French, Neapolitan pizza, a sourdough tasting-menu laboratory, a Bib Gourmand southern Thai kitchen open three days a week — and almost all of it is within ten minutes of Bang Tao beach. Families, because Bang Tao is long, lifeguarded in season and shallow-shelving, and Layan is quieter still. Anyone chasing the one Phuket beach that still feels like a secret: Laem Singh, reachable only by boat or a rock scramble. Long-stayers and remote workers, who have essentially annexed Cherngtalay.