Former Mama’s Buoi chef Dennis Tan and wife Serene have gone out on their own, swapping the former restaurant’s Vietnamese name and food for a much broader approach to southeast Asian cuisine.

The couple’s first restaurant embraces their joint heritage and delivers casual dining. The name is a bright red, neon-lit nod to Chinese informality, front of house Serene explains.

“Luho means hello in my grandma’s Hokkien dialect,” she says. “It’s a very casual greeting and exactly the way we wanted our restaurant to be.”

The pair worked with local designer Julie Lien on refitting the space. The goal was a funky and fun interior that sits comfortably alongside their brand of food.

Lien’s brief picks out pops of teal, concrete floors, blond wood furniture and, running along one side, a sit up bar with a pillar box view straight into the kitchen.

This window into the world of fragrant curry pastes, freshly sourced ingredients, noodle and rice dishes, is Dennis Tan’s domain.

With 15 years’ experience under his belt, Tan’s focus has intentionally moved away from Vietnamese cooking, to his own Malaysian heritage with a short, snappy mod Asian menu of hawker-style street food, sharing plates and a riff on home style dishes from the couple’s childhoods.

The recipe for lor bak, the five-spice pork roll and water chestnuts wrapped in bean curd sheet, is straight from his mother in law’s kitchen and eaten at occasions like Lunar New Year.

Lunch eats are quick and casual. There’s a five-dish $30 a head sharing menu available to two or more customers, as well as six types of rice bowls including one packed with caramelised pork belly, mustard greens, herbs and chilli.

Move onto more experimental dishes and Tan has come up with tasty small plate eats like crispy wonton tacos stuffed with cold mayo prawns, chilli and mango or a tiger prawn sambal with eggplant and tomato.

His mini beef wraps pop with flavour. These roti rolls are halved and stuffed with beef brisket, red onion and pomegranate arils. The slow cooked beef curry filling is fragrant and jammy.

The signature open-faced crepe topped with layers of char sui pork, prawns and coconut cream is on the evening menu.

Luho has 12 plant-based dishes, including a tamarind curry with seasonal mushrooms, or XO pumpkin with sun dried tomato and black bean sauce, cauliflower with burnt butter and eggplant jam and a vegetarian version of the house open crepe.

When it’s cocktail time, gin drinkers can sip a contemporary G & T with an Asian twist. Thai basil smash pairs basil-infused gin with lime and bush tonic, while Little Luho Maid mixes pisco with green papaya, lime and mint.