Creator

Chef Nak

ចុងភៅណាក់

Cambodian chef and culinary author who documents and revives Khmer home and royal cooking.

Chef Nak (ចុងភៅណាក់), the professional name of Rotanak Ros, is a Phnom Penh chef and cookbook author who researches and revives Khmer home and royal cooking.[1][2] Her work has drawn international attention as part of an effort to restore Cambodian cooking knowledge lost in the Khmer Rouge years.[3]

Career

Chef Nak worked at Cambodian Living Arts, first as program coordinator and later as head of finance. There she saw how the organization was reviving Cambodia's performing arts, and she began to apply the same approach to its food.[1]

She has traveled through Cambodia's provinces to learn recipes from local cooks, many of them older home cooks, and has worked to recover the flavors of Cambodian cooking from before the genocide.[3][4] She sums up her approach in three lines: "Preserve by practicing. Develop by understanding. Share with meaning."[4]

In October 2018 she began offering private dinners and cooking classes in her house in Phnom Penh.[1] The Chef Nak home dining program now offers a five-course private dinner, a cooking class of about four hours that begins at a local market, and cultural stays at the Chef Nak Heritage Residence, in Phnom Penh and in Siem Reap, hosted by Chef Nak or by chefs she has trained.[2][5][4] In 2019 she created a 12-dish signature menu for Brasserie Louis at Rosewood Phnom Penh, and she has helped shape the Cambodian menu at Khmer Kitchen in Bangalore, India.[1] From October 8 to 10, 2026, she and Chef Kimsan Soan are presenting Masters of Khmer Flavors at Park Hyatt Siem Reap, a four-course dinner on the Tonlé Sap inspired by the lake.[6]

Cookbooks

NHUM: Recipes from a Cambodian Home Kitchen (2019) gathers 80 recipes from Cambodian home kitchens. She published it herself after a Kickstarter campaign, and in 2020 it won Gourmand Awards in the Woman Chef Book and Published in Asia categories.[7][3][1]

SAOY: Royal Cambodian Home Cuisine (2023) is built on the royal home recipes that Princess Norodom Rasmi Sobbhana compiled and taught in the 1960s. On November 28, 2023, it won Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in the Best of the Best, Asian Books and Heads of State categories.[8][1]

Recognition

  • Taste of Home, "10 Asian Chefs and Innovators Who Have Changed the Way We Eat" (2021)
  • Travel + Leisure, "14 of the Best Dining Experiences Around the World," for Chef Nak Home Dining (May 2022)
  • Food and Travel Magazine, one of "Asia's best cookery schools"
  • Travel + Leisure, "5 of the Best Female Chefs in Asia" (November 2023)[1]

Interviews

Chef Nak was the first guest of The Threaded Path, in the episode "Food is Just a Hook," released on September 12, 2026. Over 54 minutes she talks about growing up, about questioning assumptions and about her part in how the world sees Cambodia.[9] In a clip released on September 18 she argues that Cambodian cuisine cannot be understood without the legacy the diaspora carries beyond Cambodia's borders.[10] A second clip, on September 24, is about representing Cambodia with excellence and lifting others up.[11]

Works

Appears in


See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Chef Nak, Wikipedia
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chef Nak, official website
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 The New York Times, on Rotanak Ros and Cambodian food (April 2021)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chef Nak, About
  5. ↑ Chef Nak, FAQ
  6. ↑ Park Hyatt Siem Reap, Masters of Khmer Flavors press release (September 4, 2026)
  7. ↑ Chef Nak, NHUM cookbook page
  8. ↑ Chef Nak, SAOY cookbook page
  9. ↑ The Threaded Path Podcast, Season 1 Episode 1: Chef Nak, Food is Just a Hook (YouTube)
  10. ↑ The Threaded Path Podcast, Where is the best somlar koko in the world, according to Chef Nak? (YouTube clip)
  11. ↑ The Threaded Path Podcast, Stop Asking Why Nobody Knows Cambodia (YouTube clip)
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This page was last edited on 3 October 2026, at 01:02.