Chef Sam Fore opened her new restaurant, Tuk Tuk Snack Shop, at 124 Malabu Dr.
After seven years of operating her popular pop-up restaurant, Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites, Lexington chef Sam Fore has ventured into her first brick-and-mortar restaurant. Beyond serving delicious food, Fore aims to promote a positive social impact through her new establishment, Tuk Tuk Snack Shop, which opened in late September at 124 Malabu Dr.
Despite this being the first permanent location for her cooking, Fore’s culinary acclaim has only grown over the years. She has been featured in magazines such as "Food & Wine," "Plate Magazine" (Chefs to Watch, 2018), "Southern Living" (Cooks of the Year, 2020), "Taste of the South" (Taste50, 2022), and "Garden & Gun" (2022). She has also made appearances on the national PBS cooking show Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. Earlier this year, she was named a finalist for a James Beard Foundation Award in the Best Chef: Southeast category.
“This was one of those situations where the right space came up and I jumped on it,” she said of the decision to plant roots with Tuk Tuk Snack Shop. “I’ve had a lot of opportunities over the years, but this was the first one that felt right.”
The Duke sandwich elevates a traditional grilled cheese with caramelized tamarind onions.
The debut menu includes buttermilk fried chicken thighs with fried chicken spice, curry leaf salt, pol sambol (a Sri Lankan coconut relish), and kiri hodi (a fragrant Sri Lankan coconut milk gravy). Additionally, there are options like “The Duke,” a grilled cheese sandwich with a house blend of cheeses and slow-cooked caramelized tamarind onions, and “The Sterling” sandwich, featuring Sri Lankan curry-spiced pulled pork topped with shallot lunu miris (a Sri Lankan condiment) and black mustard pickled carrots on a house-made hoagie bun.
Fore emphasizes that the food will remain approachable, offering a blend of familiar and perhaps less familiar flavors. “It’s definitely going to be something where people have opportunities to try new things,” she said. There will also be a bakery program with some sweet treats.
The Sterling features curry-spiced pulled pork topped with Sri Lankan condiments on a house-made hoagie.
Despite a relatively smooth process in preparing the restaurant for opening, Fore faced a personal challenge when she injured her MCL and ACL in July, requiring a leg brace. “I’m limping around, but we’re still getting it done,” she said. Always a do-it-herself kind of person, Fore said she’s using the experience as a lesson in delegating certain tasks to her team of experienced managers as she recuperates. “It’s been really a nice sort of change for me to relinquish a bit of the control to folks who are very capable to be taking it on,” she said.
Fore’s new restaurant will also host special events, with guest chefs like Top Chef’s Karen Akunowicz making appearances. In December, Fore’s restaurant will participate in the worldwide Miracle Christmas-themed nighttime pop-up cocktail bar event. In October, the snack shop’s private event space, Snackeasy, will debut. The room will be available for private parties and special events with a minimum $1,000 donation to a nonprofit in Tuk Tuk’s network. Fore said her ambition for the Snackeasy space and the restaurant in general is to contribute to the community in a meaningful way.