A Leytonstone institution of 25 years has now landed in the slightly secret Montacute Yards, off Shoreditch High Street. This restaurant has taken a long route from family-run fish and chip shop in 1999 to toast of the capital’s foodies, now sitting self-assuredly in a sleek new home.
Tony and Thelma Kularbwong retired and closed their original Thai restaurant in November, threatening to make a sad addition to the hospitality obituary list. But their son, chef Sirichai Kularbwong, has teamed up with Nick Molyviatis and Alexander Gkikas to renew Singburi for a new crowd.
On a recent visit, I found the place pleasantly full. Orange and metal dominate, and if you think that would be jarring, you clearly aren’t as hip as you thought.
We totter on metal stools gazing down the steel bar. Faces appeared pleasantly toasted by the steaming woks, embering boulders and belching smokers on the stoves, as the moustachioed chefs lean forward and deposit dishes almost straight into our mouths.
Mocktails are a contentious topic, often just fruit juices at inflated prices with a sad sprig of mint wilting away in one corner. Not so here: a cucumber sour somehow has the boozy, almost medicinal taste - I even ask the waiter if he’s certain it doesn’t have gin in it.
In-house lemongrass syrup means my date and I can later conspire over palomas (one non-alcoholic and one not) without either feeling left out. There is also a smart wine list, or BYOB available with a corkage fee, harkening back the original location’s lack of an alcohol licence.
But we didn’t come out in the cold simply to drink. We gorge on lamb riblets, pulled ecstatically off their bones, sweet with a spice that is kept throughout – punchy but not painful and liberally christened with lime. A radish salad has a similar flame but with a pleasing crunch from kohlrabi and assorted nuts.
A tomato dish is smoked until soft, heavy with umami and whispers of fiery tendrils. Grilled chicken thigh emerges like a phoenix from the flames with a layer of black crystalloid sugar and charcoal, levelling up the bird’s skin with a slap of wild ginger.
A whole mackerel is a variation on the more typical tilapia – bony like a pin cushion but with that tang that is so indicative of the sapphire-striped denizen of the deep. A nam jim talay sauce (a Thai green chilli but with so much more to give) is perfect to douse the skin and bones. There is ox cheek massaman (with jasmine rice) in all its sunset-tinted warmth, mirroring the accented walls.
But an unmissable dish is the aubergine pad phet. Alexander Gkikas spoke about Greek engineering: double-cooked: slow, low and steady, then very quick high heat for the crisped outer layer. Cubes of hard aubergine dripping in red-curry goodness, then, as you break into them, soft fireworks of flame-kissed flesh. So good I kept shovelling them into my mouth long after my friend was finished.
It all works beautifully. The counter top is not the best place for a heart-to-heart, but everything else was dinnertime heaven, including price tag – with dishes costing no more than £14.50.
Small plates, inspired by the flavours of Thailand, London and Greece, are equally reasonably priced in a venue buzzing but not deafening, stylish but not uncomfortable.
Alexander, returning from one of many Thailand research trips, claimed the dishes were better than those he had tried out there. I can’t comment on that, but this evolution from Leytonstone to the swish little Shoreditch courtyard is the kind of journey I can absolutely sink my teeth into.
Singburi
Unit 7, Montacute Yards 185‑186 Shoreditch High Street London E1 6HU
@singburi_E1
singburi.london
