Nam Pham came to Britain on a leaky boat from war-torn Vietnam in the 1970s. Now he has just opened his second restaurant, writes Peter Gruner

Pictured from left: Diners Demetra Lazarides, Jayne Eddington and Natalie Barnett with Nam Pham

A FORMER penniless refugee boat boy has just opened one of London’s smartest Vietnamese restaurants in Camden Town.
Nam An, officially opened by the Mayor of Camden at 14-16 Camden High Street, is a large, plush eatery serving many of the fresh and succulent tasting dishes from the French influenced Vietnamese cuisine.
This is owner Nam Pham’s second restaurant venture – the first is in Wanstead – but few diners are aware until now of his remarkable rags to riches story.
He was just 16 in the early 1970s when he escaped from war-torn communist held North Vietnam aboard a leaking sailing boat to seek his fortune in the West.
Despite near starvation and with others dying around him on the boat he made it to a refugee camp in Hong Kong and then on to Liverpool with the equivalent of just three pounds in his pocket.
Working for garment sweatshops in Merseyside he was always desperately home sick, particularly for Vietnamese food.
Hearing about opportunities for enterprising immigrants in Hackney he moved to London in 1984 where, with savings and a loan from the bank, he was able to rent his own ramshackle garment workshop where he eventually established a thriving business.But the dream of being able to eat and provide the kind of food that nurtured him as a child did not dissipate.
When, in 2002, restaurant premises in Wanstead became vacant, he grabbed another big loan from the bank, and has never looked back.
Things were really looking up and Nam, now married to Tuyet with two children, Tai Pham, 16, and Yen Pham, 17, moved out of Hackney and into up market Chigwell.
But, as they say, he never has forgotten his roots.
“I was lucky to survive the boat, let alone my arrival in Liverpool, and I’ll never forget that,” he said. “I had nothing when I came here so I knew I had nothing to lose.”
Mercifully, Nam An’s parents survived the Vietnam war and have visited their son many times and are very impressed with his restaurant business.
“When I was in Liverpool I used to eat a lot of Chinese food but I found it too oily,” he said. “I’d put Vietnamese food somewhere between Chinese and Thai.”
The restaurant boasts a huge range of wonderful tasting dishes but is particularly popular for its fish from stir-fried prawns with tararind, grilled monkfish with lime leaves and stewed fish in a clay pot.
Dark wood with mirrors and ceiling fans, Chinese artwork and vases, chairs with bamboo decorate the restaurant. The restaurant is divided in two with the upper part (non-smoking) and past the bar a large room for the smokers.
This paper’s own food writer Tatiana Von Saxe described recently how Nam An reminded her of the family type restaurants in Singapore – “happy places where the sharing of the food is a symbol to the sharing of friendship and enjoyment”.

• Nam An’s authentic Vietnamese Cuisine, 14-16 Camden high Street, Camden Town. Tel:0207 383 7245.