Fort Worth has never had a shortage of good Thai food, but it has had a shortage of Thai food that looks like it belongs on Magnolia Avenue. Ko Thai closes that gap. It opened last year at 725 W Magnolia Ave, a block down from the neighborhood’s other reliable Thai spot, and it came from owners who already knew what they were doing before they ever signed the lease.
Joy Theepaka and Nick Thana Pornin run Koracha Thai in Bedford, and when they decided to expand, they picked Fort Worth on purpose. The reasoning was simple: Dallas already has plenty of Thai restaurants competing for attention. Fort Worth did not have nearly enough. So they brought the Ko, which means cow in Thai, to Cowtown, and spent roughly two years working out every detail before opening the doors.
That attention shows. Ko Thai is a two-story build with a dining room downstairs and a second-floor balcony that overlooks Magnolia, the kind of layout that gives a date-night table and a family dinner table equally good options. The plates, the takeout packaging, the menu design — none of it feels like an afterthought, which is unusual for a restaurant at this price point. A full dinner without alcohol still lands comfortably under $25 a person, which is a good deal for a room that clearly spent money on how it looks and feels.
The kitchen leans into Isan-style Thai cooking alongside the dishes most people expect to see. The Crying Tiger, a marinated ribeye served with sticky rice, is the dish Theepaka herself points to as the most popular thing on the menu, and it’s the one to start with. The E-San Classic — Thai-style papaya salad, sticky rice, and roasted marin
The Tom Kha soup and the salad rolls with smoked salmon both come up often enough in local write-ups to count as safe bets, and the Beef Kra-Praw, a basil-and-garlic stir-fry, is the dish Fort Worth’s own restaurant critics keep steering readers toward. Weekly chef’s specials rotate through what the restaurant calls the Ko Series, which recently added a beef rib entree with curry gravy over grilled sticky rice — worth asking about if you’re a regular.
Ko Thai is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. The restaurant takes reservations through Tock and offers a private party space for anyone looking to book the whole upstairs. If Magnolia Avenue is already part of your rotation, this is the stop that’s been missing from it.
