Located close to major restaurant brands including The Ivy, The Ivy Asia, Pizza Pilgrims and Honest Burgers, Namo will trade from the prominent Ship Street site that was previously home to long-running Mexican restaurant Dos Sombreros.
The project follows the success of various Thai food pub residencies in the seaside city, and Street Thai, a restaurant in The Lanes that Mitchell launched and ran in partnership with the family behind Italian stalwart Donatello in 2010.
“It will be a totally different concept to what we have done in the pubs,” Mitchell says. “It will be refined and premium but not super expensive.”
“We will delve deeper into Thai food and concentrate on food from the north of the country. Namo will be seasonal. We want to show our guests what we can do with Thai food.”
Example dishes include gai kolae (grilled southern-style chicken with in-house pickles); Mekhong beef (grilled beef with Thai whiskey, Thai slaws and nam jim jaew); hung lay pork (Burmese-style pork curry with ginger and pickled garlic); and Laotian-style seasonal salad (fresh fruits and vegetables, tossed with fragrant herbs and zesty Laotian dressing).
The spend at Namo – which takes its name from a Thai word that loosely translates as respect – is anticipated to be around £50 a head including drinks.
Mitchell will continue to run Namo Eat at The Eagle Pub in the city’s North Laine area and will also stay on in her role as executive chef at No No Please, the Preston Street South East Asian-inspired restaurant and bar launched by siblings Euan MacDonald and Mel Culross in 2023.
Originally from Lampang, a city in Northern Thailand close to Chiang Mai, Mitchell was taught to cook by her grandma.
She arrived in the UK in 2003 and worked at a number of Thai restaurants including Tamnag Thai in Crystal Palace, South London.
Prior to running Street Thai and latterly Thai pub kitchens at venues including The Hare and Hounds, and Sidewinder, she taught people to cook food both privately and at central Brighton’s The Community Kitchen.
A full interview with Mitchell will be published next month.