PSV, Waterloo

The tradition of exciting, regional SE Asian food appearing above or behind unassuming pubs in London is alive and well. The first time I encountered such a thing was all the way back in 2011 at the Heron in Paddington, where you could demolish fiercely authentic laab ped and tom yum soup while downstairs oblivious locals sipped on pints of Stella and ate crisps. More recently, Khun Pakin Thai set up shop in the Endurance in Hammersmith, serving happy ex-pats and Thai diaspora (and the occasional, stupidly overconfident white Londoner) food so full of fire and flavour it could make you see the future.

And now here's PSV (for the life of me I can't figure out what the letters stand for - if anyone knows please do share), a Laotian cafe tucked above the Crown and Cushion pub on Lower Marsh in Waterloo. Now I've never been to Laos, so I can't comment definitively on the authenticity or otherwise of PSV, but certainly the impression I get from this charming little minimalist room, through the friendly and attentive service, to the blindingly brilliant food they serve, is in its way just as authentically Laotian as the weird, dark room downstairs sparsely populated with Americans drinking bad Guinness is an authentic south bank tourist pub.

Sticking to the 'Laos' section of the menu, we ordered a few things that sounded interesting (which was most of it, but, as is my weakness, I steered towards anything involving offal) and knocked back Singha beers - the only alcohol on the upstairs menu - while we waited. I did notice a few other people bringing up drinks from downstairs, but I'm not sure if that was officially sanctioned BYO behaviour or they just got lost. Either way, beer seems far more appropriate a match with this kind of food than cheap Pinot Grigio.

First to arrive was the duck laab, and instantly we were smitten. This generous (as you'd hope for £23.50) pile of minced duck, gizzards and liver, shot through with garlic, chilli, lime and fish sauce was as perfect an introduction to the place as you could have hoped - the kind of thing you could really imagine being served on the streets of Vientiane (probably). It's a miracle just how much flavour they managed to get out of these otherwise pretty humble ingredients - each mouthful was a joy.

And from here on, they could do no wrong. This is tup varn - sliced pig's liver (look, it was my birthday so I may have had an inflated influence over the amount of offal ordered) mixed with ground roasted rice, lime juice, fish sauce and a crunchy mix of fresh herbs and onion. It came with steamed rice, and the laab came with sticky rice - my advice is don't order extra rice, you won't need it.

These are sai oua, spicy pork sausages, and my god they're good. I'd be predisposed to enjoy these just by virtue of the fact the'd gone to the effort of making them, from scratch, in their own kitchens but a delicate casing burst with a delightful snap to give forth herby, soft, rich sausage meat that could clearly only have come from a skilled, loving hand. A spicy tomato dip complimented them nicely.

Next, naem kao, a "famous" (their words, but I can see why) Lao rice salad containing ham, pork skin, egg, the ubiquitous lime juice and fish sauce, and - interestingly - paprika. Served inside a bowl of iceberg lettuce, topped with fresh herbs and chillies, it was exactly the kind of salad we wanted to compliment the liver and sausage elsewhere - ie. one that contained yet more pig - and, like everything else, it was demolished in record time.

The bill for 3 people, with 2 beers each and including the 10% service (which is all they asked for), came to just under £40 a head, a bit of a steal really for 2025 even if at the back of your mind is the sad knowledge that a decade ago or so the bill might have come to half that. But hey, we are where we are and to be able to eat this food, this beautiful, exciting food cooked with heart and skill and care for this amount of money, it still feels like a blessing.

It was all so good, in fact, that a week later we found ourselves there again, demolishing more plates of those incredible sausages and this time adding in tum lao, green papaya salad (sweet, sour, herby and fresh), laab seen dip (a herby beef tartare mixed with liver and tripe... this could again have been my idea) - absolutely superb, and tom khem, a rich, slow-cooked pork stew with a hardboiled egg which came with the most incredibly addictive fish sauce and green chilli dip.

So yes, the tradition of exciting, authentic South East Asian food setting up shop in unassuming London pubs is alive and well. And just like the trailblazers before it mentioned above, PSV is a shining ambassador for this cuisine, an authentic slice of Loas in Lower Marsh. My only slight reservation about writing about it is that once the word gets out it about this 20-odd seater restaurant it could very quickly be impossible to get a table. But hey, that's your problem, not theirs. They deserve all the success they can get.

9/10