‘I tend to steer clear of pop-ups and supperclubs: if they’re good enough, they’ll eventually make it to bricks and mortar. But I’ll make an exception for this remarkable sort-of restaurant’
To find Som Saa, it’s best to close Google Maps and simply follow your nose. The aroma of wood smoke snakes around dark, railway arched corners, drawing you in to this remarkable sort-of-restaurant and telling fragrant stories of the pleasures in store.
These days, I steer clear of pop-ups and supperclubs, reckoning that if they’re good enough, they’ll eventually make it to bricks and mortar. Also, if I want to go to a bad dinner party, I can do that in the comfort of my own home. But Som Saa’s “residency” at Climpson’s Arch, the enlightened coffee roastery in Hackney, deserves the tossing aside of prejudice. Despite having the appearance of a barbecue in the boondocks – corrugated iron (real, not in a corporate-designed Dirty Burger way), fairylights, a shipping container pressed into service as a courtyard kitchen, open grills and wood fires – it is run by consummate professionals. Chef Andy Oliver has worked at Thai guru David Thompson’s Nahm; and Bo.Lan in Bangkok, probably the finest Thai restaurant I’ve eaten in anywhere. Running the FOH with suave good humour is Tom George, who honed his people skills at Goodman and Russell Norman’s Polpo empire. This pedigree, coupled with their palate-startling food, means Som Saa happily transcends its rickety-rackety surroundings.
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