Lai Rai — was it born of a Wes Anderson movie or a computer game? From its ordered red and white frontage it wouldn’t a surprise if either Owen Wilson or one of the GTA crooks emerged. It comes in two guises: “Ca phe by day, bia ho’i by night” is the motto. Or: coffee when it’s light, beer when it’s dark. A Vietnamese café from 11am-3pm, in the evenings it becomes a satay-scented canteen. Little by little, the name means, but it’s slang, too, for those laughing nights with friends that blear into soft focus over maundering conversations; a little to eat, a bit to drink. Pick at a few bites, staff suggest. It is mostly triumphant. Rice, cooked into puffs, decorated a lollipop of mashed prawn, flavoured with both a vinegar-heavy herb sauce and fish satay. Instead of a length of wood, the prawn had been worked around a finger of sugar cane; no jokes imprinted, but an in-built honeyed palette cleanser. Bánh tráng tron — rice paper salad sounds so much less attractive — arrived on an oval of steel: a nest of beef jerky, green mango and fried onions, dotted with quail eggs in half. It was rich and sweet and beautiful, and sour too. Among the dilapidation of Peckham, Lai Rai is a star — as in a guiding light, not one from the movies.
David Ellis’s 12 favourite restaurants of 2025, from Martino’s to Eel Sushi Bar
