Every morning when Elizabeth Calvo was a girl growing up in Bangkok, the day began with curry. Her grandmother would wake early to prepare food for the Buddhist monks who came through the neighborhood collecting their daily offerings. This was not leftover food or whatever happened to be available. It was the opposite: the best ingredients, prepared with care. “She had to prepare everything the best of the day to offer the monks,” Calvo says. “I learned curry from my grandma.”
Those lessons stayed with her—the layering of heat, sweetness, salt, herbs, and aromatics that gives Thai cooking its remarkable balance. Decades later, after running acclaimed restaurants in Thailand and New York City, Calvo is returning to those earliest food memories with Bangkok Market, a monthlong pop-up opening July 11 at the former Dixon Roadside on Route 212 in Woodstock. (Don’t tell anyone I told you, but there’s a sneak peek opening night on Friday, July 10 beginning at 5pm.)
But don’t expect a typical Thai restaurant.
Inspired by the rice-and-curry shops of Bangkok, Bangkok Market will operate more like a Thai canteen. Customers will choose from a rotating selection of curries, stir-fries, and seasonal dishes ladled over fragrant jasmine rice. One day might bring Catskills Red Curry Chicken or Hudson Valley Green Curry Beef; another, Thai Basil Ground Pork, Panang Chicken, or a vegetable curry built around whatever local farms are harvesting that week.
“In the old days when I grew up, street food stalls would put many pots of curry with a lot of food, and then they put it with rice and pack it up and you go,” Calvo says, and gestures with her arms open wide in the open, barn-like dining room. “We want people to feel like they’ve stepped into a Bangkok street market. This is going to be our street.”
For American diners accustomed to ordering Thai food from laminated menus organized around familiar categories—pad Thai, drunken noodles, curry, fried rice—the Bangkok Market experience will feel different. The idea is abundance, movement, and discovery: Walk up, see what’s cooking, build your plate.
“I want to make it simple as much as it is,” Calvo says. “I don’t want it to be too high and people cannot touch my food. My food is touchable.”
Calvo knows a thing or two about introducing diners to Thai cooking on her own terms. Her Brooklyn restaurant Thai Farm Kitchen earned a glowing review from the New York Times in 2019, with critic Ligaya Mishan praising the restaurant’s depth and regional nuance.
But Calvo’s farm-to-table philosophy began long before Brooklyn. Before moving to the United States, she operated Farm Lakdi in Thailand, where she grew produce for her own restaurant. “I picked up the fresh vegetables from my farm and served them in my restaurant,” she says.
That connection between farming and cooking is part of what eventually drew her north. After Thai Farm Kitchen closed in 2023, Calvo considered leaving restaurant life behind. She moved to Accord six months ago, looking for a quieter pace. Then Mike Cioffi, owner of Phoenicia Diner and Dixon Roadside, reached out.
The former Dixon Roadside space had been sitting empty, and Cioffi was looking for the right person to bring it back to life. Calvo was looking for a new project—but carefully. “We are like a couple that just knows each other,” she jokes about her relationship with Cioffi. “We don’t want to put too much pressure, too much commitment.”
The initial commitment is one month. After that? They’ll see.
In the meantime, Calvo is already putting down roots. She’s been exploring farmers’ markets, connecting with growers, and searching for ways to recreate Thai flavors with Hudson Valley ingredients. “I want to support local as much as I can,” she says.
Some things, however, can’t be substituted. Thai basil, for example, is essential. “The aroma is different—stronger, sharper,” she says.
The same goes for prik kee noo, the tiny but powerful Thai bird’s eye chili. When she can’t find ingredients locally, she asks farmers whether they might consider growing them. “Sometimes I even ask them, ‘Can you please grow my chili?’” she says.
That negotiation between Thailand and the Hudson Valley is where Bangkok Market lives. The chicken, beef, and vegetables may come from nearby farms, but the technique, balance, and spirit come from Bangkok.
Calvo says people sometimes misunderstand Thai food as simply a pursuit of heat. But Bangkok’s food culture, she explains, is about harmony. “The customer will feel like we are in Bangkok,” she says. “It’s not going to be crazy spicy like down South. It’s not going to be plain like the north. Bangkok blends North and South and East and West together.”
In addition to the daily rice plates, Bangkok Market will offer weekend specials including Tom Yum Shrimp, papaya salad, handmade fish cakes, and chive pancakes, along with Thai iced tea, Thai coffee, and desserts like coconut pudding, another recipe inspired by Calvo’s grandmother.
For now, there’s no alcohol license, though that could come later if the pop-up continues. The restaurant will be open seven days a week from noon to 8pm, with outdoor seating—including space for dogs, a very Woodstock touch that appeals to Calvo, who has four of her own.
As for coming out of restaurant retirement? She laughs.vAfter stepping away, Calvo thought she might simply cook for herself, friends, and family. But hospitality has a way of pulling certain people back.v“My instinct still wanted to go back to the business,” she says. “I still want people to try my food. I like to share my food.”
Cooking, she says, is her therapy. “Even when I cook, maybe I don’t sit down and eat my food,” Calvo says. “But I enjoy seeing you eat my food. I’m happy.”
Bangkok Market is located at 261 Tinker Street in Woodstock and opens July 11 for a monthlong pop-up. It will be open seven days a week 12-8pm.
