Rosa's Thai Cafe cooks up sale rumours

Reports are circulating that Thai restaurant group Rosa's Thai Cafe, owned by head chef Saiphin Moore and her husband, Alex, is up for sale.

As reported yesterday in The Sunday Times, the chain, which operates 13 Rosa's Thai restaurants and one Lao Café in London, is said to be positioned to sell a majority stake to private equity group TriSpan.

Rosa's Thai Cafe declined to comment when approached by The Caterer, however, it is expected to "make a full announcement" later this week.

Rosa's was founded in 2006 and started life as a market stall on Brick Lane. It now has permanent London sites in Angel, Brixton, Carnaby, Chelsea, Seven Dials, Spitalfields, Soho, London Fields, Victoria, Westfield Stratford and Hampstead.

Its most recent openings include a 60-cover restaurant on Tooting High Street within the former Belpassi Bros, which launched in March, and in Ealing Broadway, which opened in May. It is set to launch its first site outside of the capital this summer as part of the repositioning of the site on the UNESCO World Heritage waterfront in Liverpool's Albert Dock.

The group's single Lao Café in Covent Garden, which started as a pop-up in 2015, serves Laotian dishes such as tum pla raa (fermented anchovies); tum kai khem (salted eggs); om hed bai ya nang (mixed mushroom soup); jee moo (char-grilled pork skewers); and lab ped (minced duck).

TriSpan Rising Stars fund was founded by Fady Michel Abouchalache and Elan Schultz in 2016. In the past six months, the fund's partners have invested in two casual dining chains in the USA, Yardbird and Rosa Mexicano.

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