Naamyaa

Alan Yau's influence on London's mid-market dining scene runs deep — from Wagamama in the 1990s to Hakkasan's Michelin recognition — and Naamyaa on St John Street represents his take on the Bangkok café format: casual, accessible, and anchored in the everyday eating culture of Thailand rather than its fine-dining export version. The menu reads closer to a Bangkok street-food hall than a restaurant kitchen, with Thai-style hotpot (suki set) as the clearest point of difference from the city's broader Thai offer. Rice and noodle dishes form the backbone of the menu, priced around £10 per plate, which places Naamyaa firmly in the budget-to-moderate bracket for London. The room is set up for individual tables rather than communal benches, and the lighting runs brighter than the dimly lit pan-Asian spots that dominate this price tier — a deliberate departure from atmosphere-over-substance dining. Islington's St John Street corridor has long supported a range of neighbourhood restaurants at varying price points, and Naamyaa fits the area's appetite for casual, repeatable dining rather than destination eating. The kitchen covers ground from brunch through dinner, with the menu extending beyond strictly Thai territory into items like burgers — a pragmatic nod to the mixed foot traffic of EC1V rather than a culinary statement. For the suki set specifically, there are few comparable options at this price point in north London.