Thai restaurant Som Saa closes temporarily following fire

London Thai restaurant Som Saa has closed for the foreseeable following a kitchen fire.

In a post on Instagram, the team revealed a fire in the kitchen extraction system “got bad quickly” and led to staff having to evacuate. London Fire Brigade arrived within three minutes of the call being made to “save the day”.

The post read: “All the team are safe and well, but we have significant damage to repair and a large clean-up to do.

“We don’t yet know when we can reopen, but it won’t be this week. Our team have been getting in contact with impacted bookings. Our sister restaurant Kolae in London’s Borough is open as usual.”

Founders Andy Oliver and Mark Dobbie met in 2009 at the Michelin-starred Nahm restaurant in London under the tutelage of chef David Thompson.

The pair launched Som Saa in a Peckham pub garden in 2013 and crowdfunded the opening of their first permanent restaurant in Spitalfields in 2016.

In 2023, they opened Kolae, which is named after a style of cooking from the south of Thailand, where ingredients are coated in a rich coconut marinade. The restaurant was recognised with a Bib Gourmand at the 2025 Michelin Guide Ceremony for Great Britain and Ireland.