The 80-cover restaurant will replace Absurd Bird on Queen Street, and will serve a menu of familiar Thai dishes including pad Thai; green curry; drunken noodles; and stir-fried aubergine with yellow bean sauce, chilli, soy sauce and sweet basil.
Meat-free options will include sweetcorn cakes with kaffir lime; and butternut red curry with sweet basil.
It will be the Thai group’s 32nd site, joining its venues in London as well as Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, York, Liverpool and most recently in Nottingham.
“Opening our first site in the south west is a great way to start the year,” says CEO Gavin Adair. “Exeter feels completely right for Rosa’s and we can’t wait to get the woks on”.
Rosa’s Thai started by Thai chef Saiphin Moore as a market stall on London’s Brick Lane in 2007. A year later, Moore opened the first Rosa’s Thai restaurant in Spitalfields, just around the corner from the market stall. It is now backed by investment group TriSpan.
In October last year the group opened its first international site, with a Rosa's Thai launching in Dubai.