Laksa specialist Sambal Shiok confirms location for summer opening

15-Mar-2018 - Last updated on 15-Mar-2018 at 13:15 GMT

Sambal Shiok owner Mandy Yin will open her first permanent restaurant in north London this summer.

Opening at 171 Holloway Road, the new restaurant will be a laksa bar, serving the spicy Malaysian dish that earned Yin glowing reviews from the likes of Jay Rayner at her previous pop-up residencies.

The Highbury restaurant will open on the site of now-closed Mexican restaurant, Amigos.

Founded in 2013, Sambal Shiok started out as a street food stall, serving satay and rendang burgers, rice boxes and salads.

Customer demand led her to focus on laksa, however, which YIn served at a series of pop ups at Newman Arms in Fitzrovia; Salvation in Noodles in Finsbury Park; the Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho; and Green Lanes.

More recently, Yin hosted three Chinese New Year ‘banquet’ dinners at Asma Khan’s Darjeeling Express restaurant in Carnaby’s Kingly Court. Laksa was served, alongside a spread of authentic Malaysian dishes including yam cake with shrimp mushroom and turmeric whitebait.

"I take inspiration from everything I ate in my childhood growing up in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia,” says Yin on her style of cooking.

“Then I mix it up and put a new slant on it."

2018 has seen a number of new openings in the Highbury area, including Zia Lucia pizzeria, which will neighbour the site Sambal Shiok has acquired.