Another kitchen fire has hit a Melbourne restaurant. This time, chef Thi Le’s banh mi bar, Ca Com, on Richmond’s Bridge Road, has been forced to temporarily close after a fan failed and caught fire on the morning of Saturday August 5.

The team shared the news via Instagram. “For those wondering what happened,” the post reads, “the extraction unit (fan) at the top of the flue (chimney) failed and caught fire this morning, just before we opened up for trade. We were lucky that many passers-by cottoned on and alerted both us and the fire brigade. We are also lucky that an electrical fault like that did not turn into something even more major.”

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Le – who is known for her inventive take on modern Vietnamese-Australian food at the now-shuttered Anchovy – aims to be back serving jungle-pork-sausage banh mi and pandan chiffon cake slices at Ca Com shortly.

“There was minimal fire damage,” the post continues. “What has stopped us [is] water damage and secondary damages as a result of checking out the fire. In any case, we hope to be up and running in some capacity soon.”

Fire crews arrived on the scene at 10.29am, after smoke was spotted coming from the first floor, and had the blaze under control within 10 minutes, Fire Rescue Victoria tells Broadsheet.

Jeow, Le’s Laotian restaurant in the former Anchovy space next door, will continue to operate as usual, serving dinner four nights a week and lunch on Sundays.

Broadsheet has reached out to Thi Le for comment