Salvation in Noodles Team to Open MAM — Vietnamese BBQ in Notting Hill

Colin Tu, creator of pho-specialist restaurants Salvation in Noodles in Dalston and Finsbury Park, is opening a Vietnamese BBQ restaurant on All Saints Road in Notting Hill in September. MAM — which means ‘fermentation’ and is pronounced ‘mum’ — will focus on grilled meat skewers, especially the whole chicken.

Tu and his team will open their third restaurant, which will be inspired by the roadside street food stalls found across Vietnam and whose recipes have been influenced by Tu’s travels in south-east Asia. The menu at MAM (which also references Tu’s own mother) will feature her special dipping sauce made with fermented shrimp paste, chilli and pineapple.

Though the focus will be on grilled meat — as well as chicken there’ll be weekly specials, rare-breed beef and seafood — the menu will also see their classic, umami-rich Hanoi-style pho bowls, rice bowls topped with braised short rib or pork belly and egg and classic Vietnamese starters, including their much-loved fish sauce chicken wings.

Salvation in Noodles first opened on Balls Pond Road, on the Canonbury-Dalston border, in 2014; the Finsbury Park branch followed a year later. Tu was also behind the pop-up Big Dirty Burger.

Notting Hill is a restaurant destination resurgent — with openings this year including, notably, 108 Garage, Flat Iron and Core by Clare Smyth. Southam Street, by the 108 Garage team, is also scheduled to open next month.

MAM, a 40-cover split bar and dining space whose look is designed specifically to recall the riverside town of Hoi An, will open on 6 September.