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Cuisine wat damnak listed in #50bestdiscovery

Cuisine Wat Damnak

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Cuisine Wat Damnak is set in a traditional wooden house in Siem Reap, an unassuming spot for the first Cambodian restaurant to grace Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list. French chef Joannès Rivière – who arrived 15 years ago, fell in love with Cambodian flavours and now speaks fluent Khmer – serves two tasting menus. Dishes such as sour pork sausage salad with guava, lotus stems, cashews and crispy belly combine local culinary heritage with French technique.

Though Siem Reap's Cuisine Wat Damnak was the first Cambodian restaurant to enter the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2015, rising to No.43 in 2016, it wasn't until last month that, for the first time, a Cambodian acknowledged its position on the list. "This is how it works. The food scene is small in Cambodia so we keep a low profile," says chef-patron Joannès Rivière.

JOANNES RIVIERE, CHEF & CO-OWNER CUISINE WAT DAMNAK, SIEM REAP "First of all, there is obviously the war, that has put the country 30 years back behind let's say Thailand. There is also the fact that even nowadays there is not a proper Cambodian food curriculum within the country of Cambodia, so there is no, at the end, maybe a proper identity to Cambodian cuisine. I was first asked when I came as a cooking teacher for an NGO to write a Cambodian cookbook. It was the first Cambodian cookbook written in French and it was the third Cambodian cookbook written in English in 2005, so there was nothing written about Cambodian food."

With Joannès Rivière On New Cambodian Cuisine

Welcome to my place, Siem Reap, Cambodia

"獲獎餐廳Cuisine Wat Damnak，沒有名廚坐鎮，沒有fine dining格局，只有移居暹粒12年，對在地食材有無限堅持的法國廚師Joannès Rivière，為柬菜爭一口氣。"

36 Hours in Siem Reap
"Don’t let the polished plating at the well-regarded Cuisine Wat Damnak fool you: The dishes from the longtime resident French chef Joannès Rivière’s kitchen are firmly rooted in Cambodian flavors."

"The restaurant of Chef Joannès Rivière, Cuisine Wat Damnak in Siem Reap, has become the first Cambodian restaurant to land on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants...where it was named Best Restaurant in Cambodia."

Here, There, Khmer
"Cuisine Wat Damnak is single-handedly elevating Siem Reap’s traditional offering."