Clapton’s Mambow launches £35 Saturday set lunch of Malaysian small plates

Mambow, the modern Malaysian restaurant run by chef Abby Lee in Clapton, has introduced a Saturday lunchtime set menu offering three dishes for £35, available on the first day of every weekend between 12pm and 3pm. The offer allows diners to select three courses from the restaurant’s main menu, and has been launched as a lower-commitment alternative to à la carte dining at weekends.

The restaurant serves regional Malaysian dishes and specialities, with a menu weighted towards spiced and aromatic cooking. It is accompanied by a natural wine list and a rotating selection of house cocktails, which reference flavours from Lee’s Malaysian background.

Cooking takes place in an open kitchen over a hibachi grill, with the team using seasonal British ingredients in traditional Malaysian recipes. Among the dishes available are Otak-Otak Toast, the chef’s version of prawn toast, made with prawns spiced with red curry and kaffir lime leaf and served with wild betel leaf; and Sambal Petai Mussels, in which mussels are stir-fried with petai beans, pineapple, shrimp floss and a caramelised sambal based on galangal. A Hogget Curry consists of hogget rump grilled slowly over coals and served with a mamak-style curry sauce.

The dessert selection includes the restaurant’s interpretation of Tau Fu Fah, a soy milk pudding served with black sesame praline, mango sago sauce, fresh kesar mangoes and a ginger and pandan syrup. A Mung Bean Coconut Custard Tart, served with fig leaf ice cream, is described as taking its cue from tau sar piah and heong piah, the savoury-sweet pastries found in the Malaysian cities of Penang and Ipoh.

Set menus like this have become increasingly common among independent restaurants in London, particularly at lunchtime, when trade is often quieter. Fixed-price formats mean kitchens have more control over covers and ordering, and they can offer customers a defined spend before they arrive. For neighbourhood restaurants in less central areas like Clapton, where visitors are often local rather than destination-led, weekend lunch services can make extending trading hours beyond dinner a more straightforward prospect.

Mambow’s approach reflects a wider trend in the capital for South East Asian cooking that uses British produce and seasonal ingredients, rather than relying on imported equivalents. It’s a method that’s shaped the menus of a number of restaurants opened in London in recent years, with a focus on sustainability that has become increasingly important to diners. This latest offering from Lee’s team offers a delicious way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday at a price point that holds no surprises.

Food Desk

The £35 set lunch is available on Saturdays at Mambow, 78 Lower Clapton Road, London E5 0RN. For further information or to book a table, visit the restaurant’s website here.