Lao Café, the only restaurant in London to serve Laotian food, is to open in Covent Garden on 16th January 2017.
Launched by the team behind phenomenally successful restaurant group Rosa’s Thai Cafe, it follows in the footsteps of a much lauded pop up that blazed a trail through Victoria in early 2016.
Focussing on one of the last great undiscovered cuisines, Lao Café is a personal project for Rosa’s Head Chef and cofounder Saiphin Moore. Although she grew up in Phetchabun province in northern Thailand, her family are originally from Laos and still continue to embrace their traditional food and cooking methods.
For this new venture, Saiphin draws on her upbringing to serve a range of zingy salads, spicy curries and delicious chargrilled fish and meat that are staples of Lao cuisine.
The menu is designed for sharing, and features a wide array of flavourful and spicy dishes accompanied by white or brown sticky rice in banana leaf or noodles.
Destined to become signature creations are Tom Zaap Gai (spicy & sour chicken soup with toasted black sesame hot pot); Nham Khao Tod (fermented sausages with crispy rice salad) and Pla Pao Gluer (salt-grilled whole fish served with aubergine chilli dip, vermicelli noodles & fresh herbs). The more adventurous meanwhile, will undoubtedly thrill to Ohr Hed (mixed mushrooms soup with fresh herbs and ants’ eggs).
Located between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, Laos enjoys a rich culinary heritage. Although inspired by its neighbours, and by its history as a former French colony, its cuisine is markedly different.
Because the country is landlocked, there are no coconut trees, which means that coconut milk, a staple of traditional Thai food, is not used in local recipes. Many of the country’s most popular dishes have in fact evolved from field workers cooking seasonally with indigenous and fresh local ingredients. Even today, Laotian food is based on the philosophy of cooking whatever can be foraged, with fresh herbs, from coriander to dill, combined with more unusual ingredients such as ants’ eggs, frogs, bugs and banana flowers.
Offering 50 covers spread across two floors, Lao Café will showcase furniture and artwork from Saiphin’s own collection. At its heart will be a modern mural based on a photograph from her visit to Luang Prabang interpreted by graffiti artist Mr Cenz.
Bright, bold and vibrant, Lao Café brings something totally unique to the London dining scene.