Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant industry would look very different from what it is today. For a start, there would have been two fewer Rambutans.
I refer not to the fruit – hairy lychee on the outside, the same succulent fruit inside – but rather the name which Cynthia Shanmugalingam first gave to her cookbook, published by Bloomsbury in 2022, and more recently to the restaurant of the same name which she opened on 17 March 2023 near London Bridge.
I first met Shanmugalingam (pictured above) more than 10 years ago at a meeting at 10 Downing Street. The idea behind the meeting was to try and give some leadership to the rapidly expanding British restaurant industry as a whole and when I met her there I was struck by her professionalism and intelligence. She was then working for HM Treasury but I remember thinking that she had already been bitten by the restaurant bug.
We met for lunch once shortly afterwards and I was fascinated by her story. She was born in Coventry to Sri Lankan parents and had grown up watching her mother cook Sri Lankan dishes. She made annual visits to Sri Lanka to visit her grandmother and more recently her parents who have retired there. I was struck by her determination to recreate these dishes and traditional Sri Lankan cooking methods somewhere in London.
We lost touch, although I heard good things of her work with Kitchenette, an English version of the US incubator for food entrepreneurs, that she ran. The next time I heard of her was when her cookbook arrived at our apartment. It is excellent, full of lovely recipes and photos conveying the warmth of the island and of the family environment she grew up in and in which she learned to cook.
One early evening last week I called in at Rambutan next door to Monmouth Coffee in Borough Market and asked for her. It transpired that I had picked her only night off since 17 March. Instead, I was shown to what turned out to be the best seat in the restaurant.
This is the corner seat of the counter right by the front door. It was a little chilly whenever anyone came in but I was in the exact position to see what Shanmugalingam wants everyone to see: cooking as it takes place almost 8,700 km (5,500 miles) away in Sri Lanka. Facing me was not just an open kitchen but a style of cooking, over charcoal, that I had not witnessed before in London.
Shanmugalingam explained to me the following day, ‘This is what really excited me about this building, which used to be a branch of Konditor, and that is its height. It’s 4.2 metres floor to ceiling which meant that there would be plenty of room for the extremely expensive extract system which I knew we would have to install if the restaurant kitchen were to cook as I wanted it to. And I believe we have managed it.’
There was a brigade of five behind the kitchen counter plus Sarah, ex Towpath Cafe, who was as senior sous chef, firmly in charge. On my extreme left was a chef who, inter alia, was in charge of making the gundu dosas in a special paniyaram dish. These spherical balls of fermented rice-lentil batter are browned on both sides before being served with a throat-tinglingly spicy dip of coriander and green chilli (as shown above).
In between were three chefs, one whose main function was to produce the vast number of rotis required. He would pour the batter into a mould, let it cook, then flip it out and form it – with hands that must be made of cast iron – into a small, flaky-edged round like the one pictured above. Next to him was the chef in charge of the grill, obviously the hottest section of all, and next to him was the curry chef above whose head was a row of increasingly blackened small woks from which the Cornish mussels white curry, the Dingley Dell black pork dry curry and the red northern prawn curry with tamarind appeared.
I began with the prawn curry and a parsley, yellow lime and coconut sambol shown above – a dish I recall eating often in Sri Lanka. The prawns in the curry were excellent, still in half their shell so that they could be eaten with my fingers (I was on my own). The sauce was hot, made even more so by the sambol. With this I drank a milk punch. I then moved on to some Jaffna lamb ribs that had been spiced before grilling and, having watched the chef make about 20 over the past 15 minutes, I ordered a delicious roti. With this I drank a spicy 'Ginger Jaggery' cocktail.
The wine list, on the reverse of the menu, is short: two sparkling and two orange/rosé wines, four whites and four reds, all of which seem sensibly chosen. One of the whites is from Spain, and another from Sicily; the reds include a Rhône and a blend from Moravia. The cocktails are well priced at £9.90 each and I will reserve judgement on the merits of a banana negroni until my next visit.
The following day I arranged to meet Shanmugalingam. ‘You are right, the restaurant bug had bitten me several years ago and in March 2020 I was about to take on the lease on what became Manteca in Shoreditch when the pandemic struck and I got cold feet,’ she explained. ‘So I wrote my cookbook instead and waited. Then this place came on the market which has not only the right height but also had views across to the original Floral Hall, the Borough Market arches and, to the right, the Shard. I had to pitch to the Trustees of Borough Market twice but I think they chose me because they know that this is not going to be the start of a chain, and I would like to thank them for giving me this opportunity.
‘Having said that, my hair is becoming a little bit greyer ever since we opened and one restaurant critic walked in for lunch on our third day, but he was very kind. One thing I have always held on to was when I met Anita Le Roy from Monmouth Coffee long before we became neighbours when she told me, “Know what you are doing and don’t waver and what you are offering will shine through”. That was a wonderful piece of advice.’
Then, reverting to ‘elder sister’ mode, she asked me what I was going to have for lunch and promptly complimented me on my choice of a dish of the sticky chicken pongal rice. ’It’s a very Sri Lankan dish where the rice is mixed with cumin, ginger and curry leaves. I learned to cook this from my mother and she in turn from her mother.’
Shanmugalingam's brave assumptions appear to have borne fruit: Rambutan is already serving 130 customers for lunch and 180 for dinner and is planning to open throughout the day from later this month.
Rambutan 10 Stoney Street, London SE1 9AD. No phone; reservations through Resy, and walk-ins are encouraged.
