In October, the executive chef of Malis Siem Reap will join a Cambodian delegation at SIAL Paris, one of the world's largest professional food industry events. He will present a Khmer cuisine built around local products, including Kampot pepper, palm sugar, mango and cashew nuts.

Born in Windsor, Ontario, to Cambodian refugee parents, Chanthy Yen learned to cook on the floor of his grandmother's kitchen. He has since won Top Chef Canada, cooked for Justin Trudeau, and opened Touk, his Cambodian restaurant, in Vancouver. A portrait of a chef who has put Khmer cooking front and centre.

VIPs, influencers and food lovers gathered this week around a five-course menu set to officially join the à la carte selection in October. At the stove: Italian chef Fabrizio Aceti, flown in specially to present his newest creation.

In Cambodia, festive meals almost always include a dish made with fresh rice vermicelli (នំបញ្ចុក [nom bânh-chok]), served with plenty of raw vegetables (អន្លក់ [ân-luk]) and accompanied by a fairly thick, coconut-milk-based soup, most often containing flaked freshwater fish and seasoned with numerous spices. The soup resembles a liquid curry. One of the most popular versions of this dish is called "nam-ya" (ណាំយ៉ា) or "nam-ya curry" (ការីណាំយ៉ា).

Forget prahok. If there's one Cambodian dish capable of throwing off even adventurous eaters, it's nhoam sdao — a salad built entirely around bitterness, made with the young leaves and flower buds of the neem tree, known in Khmer as sdao. Unlike amok or lok lak, this dish never tries to charm you on first taste: it has to be learned. And that's exactly what makes it one of the most revealing dishes in Khmer cuisine.

He left a career in finance for New York kitchens, before founding Hem and Her in Richmond, Virginia, and becoming the first chef-in-residence at VCU's Institute for Contemporary Art. Through his pop-ups and his signature cookies, Santana Hem, the son of Cambodian refugees, reinvents his mother's cooking and carries, dish by dish, the memory of the Khmer diaspora in the United States.

Grilled at a street stall, dried on a rural market table, or simmered into a sour soup, snake has long been part of the diet for some Cambodians, particularly around the Tonlé Sap. But behind this quiet culinary habit lies one of the largest wildlife harvests on the planet — and mounting pressure on a resource scientists increasingly consider unsustainable.

Born in Cambodia and raised in France from the age of three, Tomy Gousset has become one of the most endearing chefs on the Parisian food scene. At the helm of three addresses in the French capital — Tomy & Co, Hugo & Co and Marso & Co — he cultivates a generous bistronomic cuisine, built on vegetables he grows himself and on a career path that was never a straight line.

From the rice paddies of the Tonlé Sap to the smoking stalls of Skun, all the way to the fine-dining tables of Siem Reap, Cambodia has cultivated a singular relationship with insects for centuries. Neither a sideshow curiosity nor a mere relic of famine, Khmer entomophagy tells a story of resilience, craft and, increasingly, science. A deep dive into a tradition that may yet help feed the future.

Come evening, wicker baskets and steaming pots show up on nearly every street corner in Phnom Penh. Inside: duck eggs that aren't quite what they seem. Pong tia koon tends to catch visitors off guard — but for most Cambodians, it's just a good evening snack, nothing more dramatic than that.

Behind the great classics of Khmer sweets — num ansom, num kom, kralan — hides a quieter dessert whose story reaches back to a Chinese imperial envoy sent to observe the Khmer Empire at its height. Ta guan, a pudding of yellow mung beans served in a clear tapioca syrup, appears in no tourist guide. It passes on quietly, kitchen to kitchen.

From Kyoto to Boeung Keng Kang, ceremonial Japanese green tea powder has taken over Phnom Penh's trendiest cafés in just a few seasons.

Four chefs, four courses, and a run of Penfolds' best-known labels — that was the shape of “Le Terroir Retrouvé” at Topaz in Phnom Penh. The idea was simple enough: build each dish around what a specific wine does on the palate. What came out of it, guests said afterward, felt less like a wine dinner and more like two very different terroirs finally getting a chance to talk to each other.

Far from restaurant tables and dishes reserved for special occasions, one soup captures Cambodian home cooking at its most everyday. Samlor machu trey, a sour-and-savoury fish soup, is made across the country using whatever the day's market has to offer.

On Pasteur Street, at the corner of Streets 51 and 228, Khéma Pasteur occupies the ground floor of the Arunreas Hotel as though it had always been there. Between the clink of glasses, the smell of melted butter drifting out of the kitchen, and the quiet bustle of the waitstaff, the place has been quietly pursuing its mission for well over a decade now: keeping the spirit of the French brasserie alive in the heart of Phnom Penh, without ever settling for a postcard-pretty déco

Two of Southeast Asia's most iconic hotel bars are joining forces this summer for a project as rare as it is bold: sending their finest bartenders across borders, shaker in hand.

On Phnom Penh's historic Post Office Square, inside a restored colonial building, a restaurant rewrites, plate after plate, a postcard of a life lived elsewhere.

Topaz Restaurant, a landmark of French gastronomy on Norodom Boulevard, is preparing for an exceptional evening. On Thursday, 16 July 2026, starting at 7:00 PM, the restaurant will host L'Art du Partage, a tasting dinner bringing together four acclaimed chefs around a single ambition: to celebrate the dialogue between French culinary craftsmanship and the richness of Cambodia's terroir.

The express bakery-café network of the Thalias group sets up in the southeast of the capital, within a BVM Petroleum station.

There are meals you forget as soon as dessert is served. And then there are those that stay with you long after the last candle has gone out. Chef Phyra's Tasting Menu is one of the latter.

Citrus fruits are plentiful in Cambodia: oranges, limes, tangerines and mandarins can be found in abundance on market stalls and supermarket

Prahok is a type of fish paste that has been used in Cambodian cuisine for a very long time. It is made by fermenting the fish, and it has a strong taste. Prahok is considered as the most important ingredient in Khmer cuisine.

Foie gras, grilled barramundi, palm fruit… This month, Topaz composes a seasonal menu that transforms the midday break into a complete gastronomic experience.

This research draws from Zhou Daguan's Memoirs on Angkorian society at the end of the 13th century and their contribution to social and cultural anthropology.