A New and Exciting Malaysian Laksa Restaurant Is Opening in Highbury

Chef Mandy Yin has announced on Instagram that she has found a permanent home for her Malaysian restaurant and laksa bar — Sambal Shiok — north of Highbury, in Holloway. The restaurant is expected to open this summer. Yin told Eater London that she thinks it will be the first dedicated laksa bar in the UK.

Yin, a former lawyer, founded Sambal Shiok in London in 2013. She is a Malaysian-born Chinese of Peranakan Nyonya heritage. “I take inspiration from everything I ate in my childhood growing up in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Then I mix it up and put a new slant on it,” she says.

Sambal Shiok began as a street food trader at markets in London in 2013 and subsequently launched a series of pop-up restaurants — at the Newman Arms in Fitzrovia; in Finsbury Park; Soho; then, finally, a six-month residency on Green Lanes, which closed last year. The food was very well received, with Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner calling it “vibrant, face slapping laksa...powerful, satisfying, the very stuff of memories.”

Yin has been planning to open a permanent site since the pop-up closed, and has confirmed that the new restaurant will open on the premises of what was Amigos — at 171 Holloway Road.

More soon.