Six of One - Myanmar Special
The best places to find Burmese food in London, by MiMi Aye, David Jay Paw and Ned Sedgwick.
Hello and welcome back to Vittles Restaurants. Today’s Six of One is a Myanmar special, with contributions from David Jay Paw, Ned Sedgwick, and an introduction from the writer and author of Mandalay: Burmese Food & Beyond, MiMi Aye.
I was seven years old when I saw my first nude. It was one of 12 in a dog-eared calendar that graced a door inside a cabin inside a ship docked at Tilbury in Essex. It belonged to a tattooed thinbaw-thar (sailor, literally ‘ship’s son’) who was being harangued and haggled at by my mother for ingredients brought over from Burma, aka Myanmar, to make our favourite dishes at home.
This was a rite for many of us for decades; the only other place you could find Burmese food was the now-closed Mandalay Golden Myanmar, a stalwart on Edgware Road run by the Ally family, or at the Thingyan pwè festival that we’d hold to celebrate Burmese New Year.
But in the last few years, dozens of online Myanmar grocers have appeared, making it easy to get that pickled tea hit, and every time I look at Facebook, somewhere else is serving Burmese cuisine. Most specialise in catering or delivery (the latter by post), but a handful are restaurants – new ones, ones that have pivoted or ones that have quietly offered it all along.
A caveat: when you’re mired in the food world like I am, you know too much about everyone, so when there’s a new opening, I check if the chef is a knob. This is a next-level concern for Burmese restaurants – the coup and consequent civil war in Myanmar have led to division in the diaspora, so I actively research if they support the military dictatorship (not as infrequent as you’d hope). I can safely say that this isn’t the case for the restaurants I’ve mentioned below. MiMi Aye
1. Nway Oo Pokhara
A brisk walk from Kilburn station takes you to Cricklewood, home of Nway Oo Pokhara, which bills itself as a ‘Nepalese, Burmese and Indian’ restaurant. The decor speaks to all these influences, though the soundtrack leans heavily towards golden oldies from Myanmar.
A couple of Burmese dishes feature on the predominantly Nepalese menu, but it’s at the weekend that Ko Nawarat, owner and head chef, puts on a full Burmese spread. Perhaps I’m biased, but Ko Nawarat hails from my mother’s hometown of Mogok near the Shan State in Myanmar, so his rendition of steamed sticky rice parcel hin htote is an addictive, umami powerhouse; both variants of Mogok noodles are a must-try and his a-kyaw-zone (‘all the fried things’) is an abundance of crisp morsels. You may even be lucky enough to get pennywort fritters, a rare treat I hadn’t eaten in years.
Ko Nawarat started offering Burmese food in 2023 shortly after he opened what was then Pokhara (named for the second largest city in Nepal) ‘after recognising a growing interest in Burmese flavours and the lack of representation in the UK as a whole’, but he added the Nway Oo (‘Spring’) prefix in 2024 to signify a new beginning and a stronger connection to his Burmese roots and identity (‘I am Nepali by heritage and Burmese by birth. Myanmar is my motherland, and I carry her pain and hope wherever I go’).
Ko Nawarat’s next big plan is to run regular Chetty restaurant sessions where everyone gets a banana leaf that is constantly topped up with their choice of Indo-Burmese curries and sides, a manner of eating much beloved in Myanmar. His ultimate dream, though, is to allow his diners to graze throughout the day, Burmese teashop-style, starting with breakfast staples like hsi htamin (golden sticky rice), sugared naan, yellow peas and ee-kyar-kway (youtiao), all washed down with both black and milk Burmese tea – his take on the latter is fabulously ‘cho seint’, heavy with condensed milk. MiMi Aye
68 Cricklewood Broadway, NW2 3EP
Behind the paywall: Two more recommendations from MiMi, as well as ones from David Jay Paw, and Ned Sedgwick. Plus, a reminder: You can access the Six of One map which now features more than 400 recommendations on where to eat in London and beyond.
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