Cuisine Wat Damnak is featured in an article “48 Hours in Siem Reap, Cambodia” by Condé Nast Traveller India
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.
Meet chef Joannès Rivière, the Frenchman putting the spotlight on Cambodia’s cuisine
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.
Kampot Pepper Rules in Cambodian Cuisine renaissance
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."
Michelin Guide – Cuisine Wat Damnak
With Joannès Rivière On New Cambodian Cuisine