Background <p>Surgery is the mainstay of treatment for operable tongue cancers. Due to the central role the tongue plays in speech and swallowing, tongue resections need reconstruction for restoration of these functions. Though microvascular free flap reconstruction have become the accepted practice in many centres, local flaps have their own niche in the reconstructive armamentarium.</p> Methods <p>This is a retrospective review of 17 patients who had partial or hemiglossectomy and reconstruction of the defect by facial artery-based islanded nasolabial flaps. Patient demographics, speech results, complications and quality of life were assessed.</p> Results <p>Majority of the patients were in T stage T2 (58.82%). Mean pre-operative speech intelligibility score was 2 +/- 0.791 while the mean post-operative score was 2.118 +/- 0.781. The difference was not statistically significant, indicating that the flap did not significantly worsen the speech of the patients post ablation. Temporary marginal mandibular nerve palsy was the commonest complication but only 3 of 17 (17.6%) patients had nerve palsy persisting for more than 3 months after surgery. 3 of 17 patients had partial flap loss. Mean composite score on the UW-QOL v4 questionnaire was 62.91 +/- 7.94 (in a scale of 0 to 100). Taste and anxiety was the most significant problem in the majority of patients.</p> Conclusion <p>The facial artery-based islanded nasolabial flap is a useful and reliable flap for reconstruction of small to mid-sized tongue defects with acceptable rates of complications, no worsening of speech, and acceptable quality of life after surgery. Retrospective nature of the study with a small cohort of patients were the main drawbacks of this study.</p>