Rosa's Thai Story | Making everyday Thai special

You’ll always find a warm and friendly welcome in these casual Thai restaurants. Rosa’s serves honest Thai food with a whole lot of spice and enough soul to fill the Mekong River.

Combining modern London with modern Bangkok, Rosa’s Thai grew from a humble beginning of a street stall on Brick Lane’s Sunday market in the East End of London, which quickly became a local hotspot. By summer 2008, Saiphin and Alex had bought an old cafe on Hanbury Street, with the help of friends, family and credit cards. The very first site ‘Rosa’s Spitalfields’ was born. They kept the name Rosa’s as a nod to English tradition and heritage (and also because they didn’t have the means or money to change the sign).

In 2009, the husband and wife team decided to sell their house in Hong Kong to fund the second Rosa’s in Soho, London.

An opportunity came for a third branch in 2011 at Westfield Stratford just in time for the London Olympics. It continues to be a great hit with the hungry crowd looking for a break from their shopping to this day.

In the summer of 2013, Saiphin and Alex were invited by Shaftesbury Estate to open a site in the historic Carnaby street. This period of change was quickly followed by a year of great reviews from The Times and Evening Standard. Rosa’s even got a mention from Time Out magazine as a mini-group that is ‘fast, friendly and enticing’!

Since 2008, Rosa’s has opened multiple locations all around London and the North of England, with it’s first international location now here in Dubai in the UAE. Each restaurant has its own character, it won’t be long before you find your favourite(s) Rosa’s Thai. Find a Rosa’s near you here.

“Nothing makes me happier than making people smile with my cooking. I have always loved food and my vision for Rosa’s was always to share this passion.

Every dish on the menu is created by me, based on my family recipes or inspirations from places where I have lived in. Each dish carries fond memories for me, and sharing that with my customers is what Rosa’s Thai is all about. You can learn how to cook some of my favourite dishes here.”

The first restaurant opened on the site of a popular East End cafe on Hanbury Street in London. It’s an institution for the locals so out of respect for its previous owner (and as there was no money for new signs) they chose to keep the brand.

The name stuck and Saiphin has become known as Rosa…

Every day, the young Saiphin would pitch in on the farm or in her grandparents’ grocery store, before helping her mum cook the family meal.

By the time she left school, the enterprising young lady was already growing her own crops and by 13, she’d managed to sell enough coriander to buy a motorbike and start making deliveries to neighbouring villages. At 16, she took her first steps into the restaurant business, opening a noodle shop in her parents’ front room.

People travelled from across the province to try Saiphin’s noodles, which often sold out just after lunch. What made them so popular? Well, the cool climate of Khao Kho (more Northern California than South-East Asia) allowed Saiphin’s family to grow some pretty unusual crops. As she’d always been taught to use whatever ingredients were available, the young cook would surprise her Thai customers by slipping the likes of iceberg lettuce and carrots into her wok.

Much as Saiphin learned from this home-grown approach to cooking (she still uses a lot of British ingredients in the kitchens at Rosa’s), it was a visit to Bangkok that first got her properly excited about food. The smells, tastes and sounds of the street food stalls – and the sheer variety of ingredients and dishes available there – were a world away from her life on the farm. She absolutely loved it.

When she was 20 Saiphin moved to Hong Kong to start work as a nanny. While stocking up on ingredients for endless family meals and dinner parties, Saiphin got friendly with the market traders and shopkeepers of Kowloon City (an area that’s often referred to as Hong Kong’s ‘Food City’ or ‘Little Thailand’).

A local grocery ended up asking her to open an in-store noodle shop and this, in turn, led to a part-time role in a Thai restaurant. As a result, Saiphin spent the next two years fitting catering jobs around her babysitting duties and would often be cooking from six in the morning until nine o’clock at night.

Saiphin spent the next 18 years in Hong Kong – with some extended breaks in both the Channel Islands and Thailand. In 2001, she met Alex – who was running a digital marketing business at the time.

Shortly afterwards, Saiphin opened a Thai takeaway, followed by a sit-down restaurant named Tuk Tuk Thai the following year.

The pair lived together in Hong Kong for 6 years, before selling the restaurant and moving to London together in 2006.

Living in the UK can be quite tricky when it comes to finding authentic Thai ingredients. Of course, that didn’t phase Saiphin who went wild mushroom-picking and acquainted herself with the Jersey Royal potato (now a vital ingredient in the beef massaman curry at Rosa’s).

Saiphin challenged herself to cook authentic Thai dishes with seasonal British ingredients and it reminded her of being back on the farm in Khao Kho, where the family would use whatever produce was in season at any given time.

Back in London, she started selling home-cooked meals at offices and markets. Although she’d make quite unusual dishes (fermented pork with crispy rice and red curry paste was a favourite), she’d often sell out before lunchtime. Within a year, she was recruiting friends to help deliver food to offices.

A permanent market stall on Brick Lane in East London in 2007 would soon become a stepping stone to bigger and brighter things. In 2008, just two years after arriving in London, Saiphin and Alex found a site for their permanent restaurant.

The pair took over the lease of a traditional British caff on Hanbury Street and decided to keep the name Rosa’s on the door out of respect for the history of the area – along with a lack of funds to pay for a new sign.

Rosa’s Thai was born out of our founder Saiphin’s passion for authentic Thai food served in a no-frill, relaxed atmosphere. We put genuine hospitality and great recipes at the heart of everything that we do. We’re proud to have been born in Thailand, raised in the UK and now in Dubai, UAE, with our first international site.