The impossible-to-book London restaurant Singburi is back, in Shoreditch

For years, Singburi was the destination for Thai food in London, literally. One of the UK capital’s most raved-about restaurants was almost as famous for its far-flung suburban home in Leytonstone as it was for its outstanding Southeast Asian cooking.

Now the storied restaurant has set up shop in the more centrally located East London neighborhood of Shoreditch.

Singburi opened as a family-run fish and chip shop on the outer, eastern fringes of London at the tail end of the 1990s. The owners Tony and Thelma Kularbwong morphed the place into a homely space serving recognisable Thai classics from their homeland to locals. Then the Kularbwongs’ son Sirichai, aka Siri, began exerting his influence on the kitchen. The result, a focus on unabashed regional Thai cooking, turned the no-frills dining room into one of London’s hardest-to-book tables, a word-of-mouth hit beloved for its unpretentious charm and soulful cooking. Late last year, when Siri’s parents announced they were retiring and the Leytonstone location was closing, the city mourned. When news of the new central London location broke, the relief was palpable.

At the new incarnation, Siri has teamed up with Nick Molyviatis, ex-head chef of the boundary-pushing Thai restaurant Kiln, and Alex Gkikas, co-founder of the celebrated coffee house Catalyst, as the general manager. Together the trio have reconceptualised Singburi for a new age. There are still vestiges of the former iteration-the blackboard menu, restaurant signs, artwork-however the space has been thoroughly updated for its relocation to Shoreditch.

The gleaming stainless steel kitchen serves as a backdrop to the new utilitarian space designed by Bangkok-based architecture studio Physicalist. Replete with pastel-colored Formica-topped tables and a terrazzo floor, the light-filled 60-seat room is already popular with off-duty chefs, workwear-clad locals and longtime fans of the old outfit.

The new counter seating next to a huge bespoke tiered grill and taos (traditional Thai charcoal burners) represents an upgrade from the relatively basic setup in Leytonstone. Likewise the chefs are working with top-quality producers, who provide an ever-evolving supply of herbs, vegetables, meat and seafood that add even more depth and flavor to Singburi’s dishes.

Still the current menu will be recognisable to devotees of Siri’s cooking. Singburi’s sleeper-hit status came from the chef’s blackboard specials, which slowly supplanted the more familiar dishes from his parents’ original menu. At the new restaurant, the group has phased out standards such as spring rolls and pad Thai and focused instead on the blackboard’s less conventional, rotating dishes, which are chalk-written daily by the new front door. “The menu isn’t holy,” says Gkikas. It’s driven by “curiosity not convention.” Nor is it tied to a particular regional cooking style; instead the food represents a slice of Bangkok and the myriad Southeast Asian culinary traditions that meet there.

Some diners may decry the absence of a Singburi touchstone, the moo krob, a crispy twice-fried pork belly dish that’s suffused with sticky chilli-infused fat. It’s coming, we’re told. There are, however, multiple other dishes worth exploring on the snackier side of the menu. The raw beef larb (£13, or $17) packs a fiery iron-rich punch, while the chunky dill pork sausage (£6) is perfumed with grassy anise notes. A watermelon and strawberry salad (£8.50) dusted with pork floss is appropriately cooling, as is a tangy, crunchy radish and kohlrabi salad with chilli jam.

Further down the daily-changing list are two dishes that have been around since the restaurant opened in late June. The marvellous tiger prawn curry (£18.50) sounds docile but grabs your attention with its sweet shellfish bobbing in a rich ochre-hued sauce suffused with turmeric, chilli and chunks of calming cucumber. The smoked pork nam dtok (£19) is served as a salad, Isan (Northern Thai) style. It features slow smoked pork that’s flash-grilled; the resulting tender meat is studded with unctuous fat that’s then animated with dill, mint and a piquant sauce as well as toasted rice, chilli and shallot. It’s an exemplary plate.

The original Singburi was BYOB; however, the new outfit has a rotating wine list of seasonal (mostly natural) pours compiled in collaboration with voguish importer Ancestral Wines. There are chilled reds, oranges and skin-contact whites from £7-£15 a glass, with bottles averaging around £40-£50. Vassilios Kyritsis, co-founder of the acclaimed Line Bar in Athens, has also built a cocktail list that pairs well with the sour, sweet and salty characteristics of the dishes. Look for chilli-quenching beverages like bay-infused makrut lime gimlets and palomas for around £12, and draft beers from the Goodness Brewing Co.

Gkikas has said that the original Singburi was an intrinsically East London restaurant. So when he, Siri and Molyviatis decided to move it to a more central location, it made sense to stay on the eastern side of the city rather than parachute into the tourist-drenched epicentre. Shoreditch is already home to one of London’s most notable Thai restaurants, Kiln’s freewheeling sister spot, Smoking Goat. The feted Som Saa, which has an equally uncompromising approach to fire and spice is also only a few blocks away. (The restaurant is currently closed for renovations.)

Industry watchers will wonder, is there room in the neighbourhood for another Thai dining spot? But Singburi brings its own style of cooking, not to mention cult credentials, to its new location; all three places feel sufficiently different despite sharing a culinary DNA. What’s more, they represent a counterpoint to the clutch of great Thai restaurants operating in Soho: Speedboat Bar, Plaza Khao Gaeng and Kiln. London is already in the midst of an exciting Thai food movement. The return of Singburi only enhances it.

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