Lahpet — Yippie

New Burmese restaurant opened in April 2018

Address: 58 Bethnal Green Rd, London E1 6JW
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Frustrated with his day job, Dan Anton, the co-founder of Lahpet, binned headhunting for restaurant trade, following his passion for Burmese cuisine and opened Lahpet. It is a brand new permanent residence of what originally started out as a market stall, “bringing Burmese to London” says Dan Anton. His father is from Myanmar and Dan loved eating Burmese dishes cooked by his grandmother and aunt every Sunday. His fondness for cooking classic Burmese dishes led him to the idea of tapping into the relatively new Burmese cuisine, which has a mélange of Indian, Thai and Chinese influences.

Dan wanted to test Londoners’ appetite for Burmese food and so he started cooking his family recipes at a market stall in Maltby Street in 2016. His noodles and lahpet (fermented tea leaves) salad were a hit straightaway. This gave him the confidence to open Lahpet at a temporary warehouse site in the back streets of ever increasingly popular Hackney – very close to where Som Saa used to be – in late 2016. Despite a fairly mixed review in Evening Standard, diners got curious and more queues formed. Trusting his instinct that “Londoners crave Asian flavours”, he finally decided to quit his day job and take his venture to the next stage. His permanent site is in Shoreditch, sticking to “his East London roots”.

Dan co-founded the latest venture with Zaw, the head chef, who grew up in Myanmar and had been working as a chef in London. Zaw knew his Burmese food and started advising Dan at the Maltby Street market stall before deciding to join Lahpet as the head chef.

An exciting venture for an entrepreneur who was bold enough to quit his 9-5 job, delving deep into his heritage. He wants to take us with him on his adventure, opening our eyes to the culinary delights of Myanmar. Perhaps with Lahpet and other Burmese restaurants importing more produce from Myanmar and potential tourists wanting to try the cuisine before travelling there, producers and communities in Myanmar will start to benefit a bit from the expansion of Burmese cuisine in London.

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April 2018