What Makes a Best New Restaurant with Elazar Sontag

Every year, thousands of new restaurants open

across the country,

and every year, Bon Appetit hits the road to find the ones

that best shape food culture.

This is Baan Mae.

[gentle music]

Baan Mae is a concept

where I have thought about it for quite some time.

It's a mom house that we also opened the door

to other people to showcase mom's style of cooking.

I kind of like thinking about it,

like representing not just my culture

and also other Southeast Asian culture.

My mom loved to take me out.

She would put me in the back of her bicycle

and take me down to the Mekong River.

There's a store that actually served this particular salad,

and when I actually opened the restaurant,

this very first dish came in my mind is the Nam Tow.

I don't like to have any of our food going to waste.

I like to jump into something that I never done before,

something new.

How can I incorporate the leftover rice, vegetables, noodle?

Hey, Matt, how are you.

With Baan Mae, Chef Seng's vision

is to widen people's aperture

to understand Lao food culture

as something that can be creative and imaginative

and go beyond the borders of tradition.

When my team comes in,

I told them what I will have for the day.

It's gonna be Nam Tow special.

And what they usually do, they go ahead and post it on Toast

and it become instantly an available dish right away

before we open.

Some fresh lemon grass, herbs, chili lamb sauce.

I like that Toast give the flexibility

and the ability to be creative at the last minute.

Toast make our life easier.

Chefs Seng is often called the Godmother

of the Lao food Movement,

championing a once underrepresented cuisine

and opening doors for young Lao-American chefs.

All right, guys, let's eat. Yay.

It's quiet in here, you guys, it must be really good.

Yay.

[crowd laughing]

All right, team, so tonight is busy than usual

on a Wednesday.

63 cover.

[gentle music]

I look at myself back in the days

that I want to do something

where I can build Baan Mae mom house,

welcoming them into my kitchen,

make them feel like home, make them feel like community.

[Matt] You're really having

not just the experience of the chef,

but of all the servers and the bartenders

who have also bought into this vision

and the mission of this incredible restaurant.

The way I find out was Alina came in

after service, she pulled me on the side

and she's like, Guess what?

You know we are on the best new restaurants in America

on Bon Appetit?

I lost speech. I couldn't talk.

It's more than a dream come true.

It's like living a dream every moment, ever since.

[gentle music]