Chef Phila Lorn of Cambodian sizzling spot Mawn took dwelling the James Beard Award for Rising Chef on Monday, June 16, on the basis’s annual gala in Chicago.
In his acceptance speech, Lorn devoted the award to “having confidence in proudly owning what you do as a craft” and likewise the numerous assumptions that Mawn needed to battle by in its opening days, together with “that the meals wasn’t gonna be adequate, or genuine sufficient, [or] I wasn’t well-liked sufficient.”
“Once I discovered I used to be nominated for this award, the belief was that I used to be gonna win it,” Lorn stated to cheers from the gang.
The chef was up in opposition to 4 different nominees within the class, together with Nikhil Naiker of Nimki in Windfall, Rhode Island, and Jane Sacro Chatham of Vicia in St. Louis, Missouri.
Mawn has rapidly turn out to be considered one of Philly’s hardest-to-snag reservations because it opened two years in the past in Philly’s Bella Vista neighborhood. The self-proclaimed “noodle home with ‘no guidelines’” serves dishes like a wealthy beef noodle katiew (a Cambodian noodle soup) with sliced wagyu and braised oxtail, and a crowd-favorite all star seafood rice filled with crab, bay scallops, shrimp, crab fats butter, and trout roe. There’s additionally the “Puck & See” family-style tasting menu, a enjoyable possibility for teams the place Lorn and his crew decide a wide range of dishes to ship out for $65 per individual.
Wanting ahead, the group is hardly slowing down: Phila and Rachel Lorn, his spouse and enterprise associate, are about to open a second restaurant, a Southeast Asian oyster bar known as Sao, in East Passyunk.
Disclosure: Some Vox Media employees members are a part of the voting physique for the James Beard Awards. Eater is partnering with the James Beard Basis to livestream the awards in 2025. All editorial content material is produced independently of the James Beard Basis.