Normah's

Normah's in Bayswater is a Malaysian restaurant that has, over many years, built itself into an institution for London's substantial South East Asian and Muslim populations. The restaurant sits inside a small shopping arcade off Queensway, a corner of Bayswater that has been home for decades to a concentration of Malaysian, Indonesian, Thai, and Chinese shops and eateries serving both the diaspora communities and the many tourists staying in the area's hotels. Normah herself is a known personality — the kitchen is hers, the recipes are hers, and the food is unapologetically home-style Malaysian. The menu reads as a tour of the Malaysian kitchen: nasi lemak with sambal and anchovies and a boiled egg, beef rendang cooked slowly until the coconut milk has thickened to caramel, chicken curry with potato, rojak salad, satay with peanut sauce, laksa in its creamier and tangier variants, and a separate vegetable section for those wanting lighter dishes. The halal sourcing is serious — Malaysian cuisine is overwhelmingly halal by tradition, and Normah has kept her kitchen entirely free of pork and alcohol, with meat from certified suppliers. The dining area is simple — a handful of tables and a counter, fluorescent lighting, framed photographs from Malaysia — but the food speaks for itself. Prices are reasonable, portions are generous in the home-cooking sense rather than the showpiece sense, and the clientele is a strikingly mixed group: Malaysian families who have made the pilgrimage across London for a taste of home, Singaporean tourists drawn by reputation, London food writers who have discovered the place, and the occasional Muslim visitor staying at a Bayswater hotel. During Ramadan the restaurant stays open for iftar. For a Muslim traveller looking for authentic Malaysian cooking in central London, Normah's is the obvious recommendation.