Chef-founder Mandy Yin - a former lawyer who launched Sambal Shiok as a street food business before opening the Holloway Road restaurant - cited “mounting economic pressures” behind the decision to call time on the project.
“Sambal Shiok’s closure reflects structural cost pressures facing the UK’s independent hospitality sector rather than any single event. The numbers stopped working,” she says.
“We’ve been operating in a tightening squeeze since Covid. By spring 2026 it was clear the only responsible decision was to close.”
Sambal Shiok opened in 2018 and built a strong reputation for its punchy Malaysian-Chinese Peranakan flavours.
Signature dishes included its curry laksa, Malaysian fried chicken and beef rendang nasi lemak.
Yin is the author of Sambal Shiok: The Malaysian Cookbook, which has sold nearly 30,000 copies, as well as Simply Malaysian.
She will continue her writing work alongside advisory and product development roles with food and hospitality businesses, which she has undertaken alongside the restaurant in recent years.
Yin said she was proud to have introduced the Malaysian food she grew up with to a wider audience in London and thanked the loyal customers who had supported the business over the past eight years.
She added that her immediate focus is supporting staff as they look for new opportunities, saying: “In particular, I have two sponsored staff — my head chef and assistant manager - who need employers with unallocated sponsorship certificates. Please get in touch if you can help.”