Vietnamese Banh Mi in Peckham: Lai Rai's Weekend Lunch

Lai Rai serves banh mi at 181 Rye Lane, London SE15 4TP, but only at lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 12 pm to 3 pm. The rest of the week the Peckham room is a dinner and drinks spot, so the sandwich is a weekend ritual rather than a weekday grab. Each banh mi costs £12, and you pick one of three fillings and a glaze for the bread: plain, spicy or golden syrup.

Lai rai means 'little by little' in Vietnamese, and the restaurant's own site explains the idea: one more beer, one more plate, one more round, rooted in bia hơi culture, the fresh-beer corner bars of northern Vietnam. Its founding concept and menu direction are credited to Blair Nguyen and AP Nguyen, who describe the cooking as food they grew up with, food they crave, and dishes they want to share with friends.

The site is upfront that some recipes come from home, some from years spent working in kitchens, and some exist because the team could not stop thinking about them. That mix explains why the menu sits somewhere between a family table and a modern bar: a seitan cold cut sits next to a classic braised pork belly. The interior is by the design studio House of Baby, and ingredients come from local suppliers the team likes working with.

Every Lai Rai banh mi comes with cucumber, crinkle-cut pickles, chilli, fresh coriander, spring onion and house sauces. The thịt kho is soy-braised pork belly with a yolk sauce and tangy pickled mustard greens, and it is the filling that tastes most like a Vietnamese home kitchen. The gà nướng pairs roast chicken thigh with a pork and chicken liver pâté and house-made sriracha.

The chả chay is the vegan option, a seitan and mushroom cold cut with tofu whip and miso kho quẹt, the salty-sweet dipping relish. All three are £12. The glaze choice changes the sandwich more than you might expect: the golden syrup version turns the crust sticky and sweet, which works with the thịt kho but fights the sriracha on the chicken. First-timers should take plain or spicy.

Lai Rai says its coffee is Vietnamese, strong and short, with smooth notes of butter and chocolate. A cà phê đen, black and served hot or iced, is £5, and the cà phê sữa with condensed milk, which the menu calls the classic serve, is also £5. The iced cà phê dừa is a latte made with coconut milk, again £5, and cà phê lai mixes coffee with jasmine tea for £4.50.

Non-coffee drinkers have two good options at £4.50: trà mãng cầu, jasmine tea with soursop, and trà hoa húng, a caffeine-free hibiscus and basil infusion. With a banh mi and a coffee, lunch comes to £17 before service, which is fair for Rye Lane on a weekend. If you want only one thing, make it the cà phê sữa. It is the drink the sandwich was built to be eaten with.

The sandwich menu is short, and the reason to linger is the dinner card that follows. On weekends the kitchen serves all day with a short break from 4 pm to 5 pm, and on weekdays dinner starts at 6 pm. Small plates include prawn lollies with young rice, sugarcane and fish sauce satay at £4 each, and grilled pork neck skewers with lemongrass and sesame, also £4 each.

Larger dishes run from a papaya salad with braised pig ear and pineapple at £12 to a grilled pork chop with green peppercorn relish at £34. The soft shell crab stuffed with pork and herbs is £24, and a charred baguette with the same three glazes is a £4 side. Cocktails cost £12 to £13, and the cà phê martini with vodka, Vietnamese coffee and Kahlua is £12.

Banh mi lunch runs only three hours a day, three days a week, so arriving close to noon is the safest way to get your first choice of filling. The site does not mention taking bookings for lunch, and the sandwich service works as a walk-in counter. For dinner, reservations go through SevenRooms, which is where to book a table for two or four on a Saturday night.

Groups of seven or more eat a £45 per person sharing set menu, with drinks and service charge on top, and get the table for two and a half hours. The deposit is refundable if you cancel more than 72 hours ahead, and dietary requirements are due 72 hours before the booking. If Lai Rai is full, Peckham's Rye Lane is lined with cafés and grocers, so a backup is a short walk away.

Rye Lane is Peckham's high street, a long run of Caribbean and African grocers, hair shops and cafés between Peckham Rye station and Peckham Rye Common. Take your banh mi south toward the common and Peckham Rye Park, which has lawns, a Japanese-style garden and a café, and is the best place nearby to eat outdoors on a dry afternoon.

Heading north instead, you pass Peckham Rye station's restored Victorian building, and a short detour off the high street brings you to Peckham Levels, a former multistorey car park turned into studios, bars and food stalls. The Bussey Building, a former cricket bat factory now used for gigs and events, is tucked behind Rye Lane close to the station.

Address: 181 Rye Lane, London SE15 4TP. Email: hello@lairai.london. Banh mi: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 12 pm to 3 pm. Dinner: from 6 pm on weekdays, and all day on weekends with a break between 4 pm and 5 pm. Peckham Rye station, on Southern, Thameslink and the Overground, is the nearest rail stop, and buses run the length of Rye Lane.

The menu marks vegan (ve), gluten-free (gf) and nut (n or p) dishes, so tell staff about allergies when ordering. Lai Rai posts daily specials on its Instagram, @lairai.london, and sells its own merchandise through the shop page on its website. Press coverage has come from the Evening Standard, Time Out and Condé Nast Traveller, and the restaurant is listed in the Michelin Guide.