Head to any of Sydney’s bustling food markets, from George Street to Redfern or the buzzing Chinatown Night Market, and you’ll notice the queues.
The draw is Sweet Monster, a tiny Thai sweets shop where trays of jewel-bright luk chup (miniature glazed fruits crafted from mung bean and coconut milk) and other coconut-laced classics vanish fast from the counter.
Thai dessert specialists Sweet Monster at the Friday Chinatown Market.
Behind the glass stands husband-and-wife duo Tony Kaewsongsri and Beenie Chankaew, migrants from Thailand who’ve turned their Redfern nook into a sugary sanctuary. Every piece is handmade daily, offering locals and travellers a taste of tradition wrapped in colour, care and nostalgia.
From Bangkok to Redfern
Tony first arrived in Australia in 1991, chasing opportunity and adventure. He spent years working in Thai kitchens across Sydney, learning the rhythms of restaurant life. “I learned everything by watching,” he says. “My mum, my grandmother, they made dessert all the time. In Thai food, you must learn with your hands, not just eyes.”
Beenie’s path couldn’t have been more different. Once working in accounting, she grew up in Sukhothai Province, Thailand’s first capital and said to be the birthplace of the Thai written language. “I was surrounded by good Thai food and desserts,” she says. “When I came to Australia in 2013, I missed the sweetness. I wanted to learn how to make it myself.”
The pair met online and quickly realised they shared a dream: to bring authentic Thai sweets to Sydney. “When Beenie ate dessert in Thai restaurants here, she told me, ‘It doesn’t taste like home,’” Tony laughs. “She said, ‘I can do better.’”
Tony and Beenie at Sweet Monster.
Learning from the source
So they went back, literally, to the source. In Thailand, they travelled from province to province, notebook and camera in hand, seeking out village cooks and street vendors who still made desserts the old-fashioned way.
In every region the sweets are different. Different rice, different coconut, different colours.Beenie Chankaew
That spirit of curiosity defines Sweet Monster’s menu. The first sweet they ever sold was a pandan layer cake, its perfume familiar yet modern enough for curious Sydney palates. Their mango sticky rice, with alternating layers of black and pandan-flavoured white sticky rice remains the runaway favourite.
Pandan flavoured sticky rice and mango.
“We can sell up to 500 boxes in six hours,” Tony says, grinning. “That’s about 40 kilos of rice.”
“In Thailand, when everything is eaten, that’s the sign of a good meal,” Beenie says. “Only the plate remains.”
Sweet Lessons in Resilience
When COVID hit, the shop closed - not once, but several times. “We shut, reopen, shut again,” Tony recalls. “It was so hard.” Yet each reopening drew longer queues, fuelled by loyal fans and word-of-mouth devotion. “People from Melbourne fly here to buy and then fly home,” Beenie smiles. “Some customers come every day.”
Quality, Tony says, is the hardest part. “To make dessert by hand, you must have patience. To keep consistency, every day is a new challenge.”
A partnership built on sugar and strength
Their working rhythm is effortless. “She is the creative one,” Tony says. “I’m the bank,” he adds with a laugh. “She thinks, I make it happen.” Beenie doesn’t deny it. “I always want to try something new, every day,” she says. Next week, she’ll launch a lower-GI red-rice version of their mango sticky rice, while Tony will test a caramelised banana custard.
The queue for Sweet Monster at Chinatown Markets on a Friday night.
“Maybe one day,” Beenie muses, “we will open an all-dessert Thai restaurant. A place for people to sit, not just take away.”
The name that stuck
When it came time to register their business, Tony had a clear idea.
“I wanted to call it Sweet Master,” he says. “But someone said to me, ‘You look like a Sweet Monster!’ So that became the name.”
It fits — a name that captures their humour, energy and mix of sugar and strength. “Tony is very practical,” Beenie says affectionately. “He keeps going, never stops. I dream; he builds.”
The taste of belonging
Asked what he’s learned from life in Australia, Tony pauses, eyes soften. “Many people, many cultures, many religions,” he says slowly. “But they all like my dessert. I never thought my dessert could make people happy. It’s not easy to make everyone happy.”
This is our love story… how we found each other and share Thailand with Sydney.Beenie Chankaew
Sweet Monster proves that sweetness, in all its forms, is a universal language. And judging by the queue forming outside their George Street shop and Chinatown Market stall on Friday evenings, that’s exactly what Tony and Beenie do, serving joy by the spoonful, proof that Sydney’s sweetest stories often begin far from home.
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