What makes Chanthy Yen tick?

“What’s important about me is my perseverance,” Chanthy Yen confides. The 35-year-old peripatetic chef is now based in Vancouver, where his vegan restaurant Nightshade won a Bib Gourmand two years in a row.

The Cambodian-Canadian is modest, maintaining he’s not passionate about cooking. “I’m passionate about sharing the story, transferring the energy and the thoughtfulness that I put into the food onto the table,” he says.

Yen’s self-effacing persona belies his accomplishments. He’s worked with Ferran Adrià, Andoni Aduriz and Magnus Nilsson. He had his own New Canadian restaurant, Fieldstone, in Montreal, before becoming the Executive Chef at Parliament, a British-style pub in the city’s Old Port. When the pandemic and a series of lockdowns came along, Yen persuaded his bosses to let him open up Touk, a takeout space for Cambodian food, the first in the city. It was, predictably, a hit. He started a GoFundMe to go to Cambodia and cook for the King (that’s on hiatus while the spectre of Covid still looms). He got himself a cookbook deal with Penguin Random House for a collection of his grandmother’s recipes. When pandemic restrictions slowed down, he moved back to Vancouver to reunite with his husband (they just celebrated their 13th anniversary) and run Nightshade. And then he got asked, out of the blue, to be the personal chef to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family, an opportunity he could not turn down.

_{Justin Trudeau and Chanthy Yen}

Cooking for the Prime Minister was an official role, including family meals, state dinners, and representing Canada at the Club des Chefs des Chefs Summit in Madrid in 2022.

“If it weren’t for the Prime Minister’s father, [former Prime Minister] Pierre Trudeau, my own family wouldn’t have made it to Canada,” Yen says. “I cooked Cambodian food for the family, which they loved. In a way, that was giving back. But I was also responsible for representing Canadian cuisine and heritage on a global scale.”

Yen came to cooking literally at his grandmother’s knee. His family escaped Cambodia as refugees, eventually settling in Windsor, Ontario, a small Canadian city across the bridge from Detroit. While his parents worked at exhausting day jobs, Yen’s days were spent with his grandmother, aunts and cousins, seated on the family’s kitchen floor, butchering chickens, being dispatched to pick the fresh herbs that form the basis for much of Cambodian cuisine, and pounding kroeung spice paste.

“My yey” – grandmother in Khmer, just one of the many languages Yen speaks – “was the strongest woman I’ve known,” he says, pointing to the necklace that belonged to her (he’s worn it nonstop since her passing over a decade ago). The dishes that continue to connect them influence and infuse his own food. His forthcoming book, Recipes by Yey, is an ode to her cooking and her life. What foods remind him most of her? “Nom banh chok, our Cambodian national noodle dish, and somlar machou, a soup we usually eat with rice spiked with homemade fermented mustard greens. These bring me right back,” he says. “Also, Aunt Jemima instant pancakes, because yey and I explored that together,” he adds with a laugh.

_{Left to right: Auntie Ming (young aunt) Onn, Grandma Phan Thonn, Chanthy Yen, mum Nha Chea and brother Savoeun Yen}

Nightshade, Yen’s most recent project, was the only vegan restaurant to win the Bib Gourmand in Vancouver, a gastronomic city known for its range of deep-rooted Asian food. “It’s a strong achievement,” Yen says humbly. “I was usually in charge of specials and dietary restrictions at other restaurants. Cooking vegan really challenged my creativity.”

Working with Adrià at El Bulli provided Yen with insight on cooking techniques, both modern and traditional, that were invaluable at Nightshade. “Quite literally, Ferran would be lurking over our shoulders to make sure our work was legitimate – fermenting peppers for hot sauce, making koji in-house, and ensuring our plant-based custards wouldn’t curdle or split.”

Nightshade closed temporarily in late September, after it got its second Bib Gourmand. An astronomical rent and the need for more space led the owners to take a break to find another location.

“Nightshade was a place where people felt it was their best and favourite job,” Yen says.

He had it rough in some kitchens; he’s talked openly about being the target of homophobic and racist attitudes. “I’m no longer the guy who had to continue through service after cutting themselves, or be sworn at, or made fun of for wearing eyeliner,” he recounts. He prides himself on the positive atmosphere that he established in his own kitchens, where the lessons he learned from his grandmother – treating others with kindness and leading by example – are part of the work culture.

“It’s an energy sharing,” he says. “Of course, there are challenges within a day, but there’s no swearing, and there’s always ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.” Unlike chefs who say the kitchen team is like a family, Yen approaches his team in a different way. “I’ve always had a colourful team, from our origins, to gender, to sexuality. But we always have something in common, which is to push ourselves and strive towards their own culinary journeys. I’m there to help my team.”

So, what’s next for Yen, now that Nightshade is taking a break?

His long-term goal is to open his own Cambodian restaurant with Pacific Northwest flavours, when the time is right. Maybe teaching, he’d love to be a culinary instructor, he says, giving back and encouraging the next generation of chefs. He’s already connected with young Cambodian chefs, exhorting them to showcase their Khmer dishes with pride, and to distinguish them from other Southeast Asian cuisines.

For now, though, Yen is heading to Venice this month for an exploratory visit in preparation for his next gig: Executive Chef of Vancouver’s Venetian-inspired Bacaro, a Michelin-recommended Italian restaurant.

“Everything that I’ve done has been different and a separate concept with different parameters, a different location and a different audience,” Yen says. “I know how to channel adversity into reinvention.”

It’s clear that the Bib Gourmand is just the beginning for this rising star.