Chefs don't make the best restaurateurs. I know, I know, hysterical overstatement, but many successful restaurants are all about the customer rather than the ego in the kitchen. They're run by strangers to the stoves: Chris Corbin and Jeremy King (the Delaunay, the Wolseley); Will Beckett (the Hawksmoor group); Leonid Shutov and Richard Howarth of my beloved Bob Bob Ricard.
And Naamyaa's boss, Alan Yau, a man often described as visionary. With good reason: it's easy to forget that rabid restaurant queues weren't always for burgers; they were once for Yau's much imitated Wagamama and Busaba Eathai. One of his more inspired moves is an association with that least egotistical of chefs, David Thompson, world authority on Thai food and all-round lovely chap. Sadly, he's returned to Bangkok by the time I visit, but since this is clearly the prototype for a series of Naamyaas, it would be naive to expect his constant presence.
The mainly Thai-Malay menu is full of grainy photographs of set meals and bristles with curiosities: sadtor, or "stink", beans, bitter melon soup; they fly in kanom jin from Bangkok, fresh, marshmallowy-textured noodles made from fermented rice and the vehicle for curried fish sauce. There's an anomalous and unappealing parade of western junk favourites – chilli dogs and burgers – and, just in case you've drifted off, Puy lentil and feta salad.
It's meant to reference Bangkok's eclectic cafes – ones I clearly missed on my travels. For one thing, Naamyaa is beautiful in a brilliantly modern, sui generis way. Ziggurated rows of peachy Thai brick display row after row of golden Bodhisattvas. Vast windows illuminate a bustling open kitchen. And I'm properly in lust with the Thai-flavoured Toile de Jouy wall tiles, looking like France has gone drugged-up backpacking.
Service is equally enchanting. What does Yau put in staff meals? This is the kind of bushy-tailed love bombing you'd expect from a cult. They're so solicitous it makes me want to complain just to give them something to do. And I could: I'm not sure when the kanom jin were flown in, but these are a bit knackered and sticking to each other for support; their tomato and soybean "naamyaa jay", however, is wonderfully pungent and throbbing with aromatics, and I like its pickled morning glory and chocolate truffle-textured "60 degree" eggs, too.
Grilled sirloin salad features tough, stringy meat and is uncompromisingly sour. And the som tam salad that comes with Isaarn chicken and sticky rice (a northern Thai classic) looks fresh and innocuous with its green papaya and string beans, but its quantities of bird's-eye chillies make me choke and glug my drink. Which is, alas, a Bloody Naamyaa featuring "umami salt" and "smoked water". (Me: "How do you smoke water?" Server: "Um, there's a kind of gun.") The definition of fighting fire with fire.
Naamyaa does not fear the sting of capsaicin. The laksa is so ruthlessly fiery, it makes my ears rattle – and I get off on heat. This is a Thai take on the Malaysian staple, rich with coconut milk, more hefty curry than soup. It doesn't so much ride roughshod over its squid, prawns and pneumatic fishballs as stomp all over them with hobnailed boots. Thank goodness, then, for the salve of green melon soup – but, argh, oodles of white pepper. Pudding is kind of deliciously revolting: young coconut set firmly, like a stout pannacotta, and pocked with bouncy black tapioca balls. But soothing, so soothing: Germolene for the tortured palate.
I genuinely believe Yau is some kind of genius. From that easily Google-able name to the faux-sleazy LED light display, Naamyaa is like nothing else in town. I'd be happy to eat beans on toast here, cosseted by beaming cult members and blessed by glittering Bodhisattvas, but you can get Hakkasan-style jasmine tea-smoked baby back ribs and Mekhong whisky and grüner veltliner. Yau, the consummate restaurateur, has done it again.
• Naamyaa Cafe 407 St John Street, London EC1, 020-3122 0988. Open all week, noon-11.30pm (11pm Sun). Meal for two with drinks and service, about £60.
Food 6/10
Atmosphere 8/10
Value for money 7/10
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