Creator

Nite Yun

Cambodian American chef and restaurateur in San Francisco and author of the cookbook My Cambodia.

Nite Yun is a Cambodian American chef who owns Lunette, a counter-service restaurant in San Francisco's Ferry Building.[1] Before Lunette she ran the Oakland restaurant Nyum Bai from 2018 to 2022, and in 2025 she published the cookbook My Cambodia with Tien Nguyen.[1][2]

Early life

Yun was born in a refugee camp in Thailand; the Carnegie Corporation gives her birthplace as Cambodia.[2][3] She came to the United States at the age of two and, after a few months in Texas, grew up in Stockton, California.[2] She has said that Stockton's immigrant communities and their underground food economy shaped her and her work.[1] At 19 she moved to the Bay Area to study nursing at San Francisco State University, and she left the program in her senior year.[2] In 2005 she traveled to Cambodia for the first time, in search of her roots.[4] On her fourth visit, while eating noodles, she was struck that the food was unknown in the United States, and the name of a future restaurant, Nyum Bai, came to her.[2] She went back to Cambodia to interview chefs about their favorite recipes.[4]

Nyum Bai

Yun joined the food entrepreneur incubator of La Cocina in San Francisco, which teaches cooks from immigrant communities how to run a business, and spent four years in the program.[2] After running Nyum Bai as a pop-up, she began serving her food from La Cocina's stand in the Emeryville Public Market in February 2017.[5]

Nyum Bai, literally "eat rice" in Khmer and also "let's eat," opened in 2018 in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood. It was her first restaurant.[3][1] Its food and décor paid tribute to the golden era of Cambodia in the 1950s and 1960s. Cambodian records played from opening time, and record covers lined the walls, some found with help from the Mietophoum Khmer Archive, which preserves Cambodian music.[2] The menu included Cambodian curries, noodles and soups, among them koh, a pork belly and coconut dip with vegetables, and machoo kroeung, a slow-cooked beef soup with water spinach and eggplant. Both are made with prahok (ប្រហុក), fermented fish paste.[4][2] Yun has said she wanted the restaurant to preserve Cambodian foodways, to help people coping with the trauma of Cambodia's history and to be a place for the Cambodian community to come together.[6]

In May 2022 Yun announced the end of Nyum Bai's five-year lease and her decision to close the restaurant.[7] That August it served Cambodian stir-fried noodles and Khmer fried chicken at the Outside Lands festival.[8] Yun then opened Lunette in the Ferry Building.[1] She appeared in the Netflix series Chef's Table: Noodles.[9]

My Cambodia

My Cambodia: A Khmer Cookbook, written with Tien Nguyen, was published in 2025.[1] Yun has said that cooking Cambodian food has been her way of telling stories, and that the book tells her own story and her parents' story of resilience and strength. She also wanted readers to remember the good times in Cambodia, when Cambodian rock 'n' roll was playing and art was thriving, and the book suggests rock 'n' roll playlists for cooking.[10][11] The book centers on two essentials of Cambodian cooking, prahok and kroeung (គ្រឿង). Nak Bou drew its line illustrations, and Nicola Parisi took the photographs.[1]

Kroeung, which Yun translates as "ingredients," is a paste of pounded lemongrass, turmeric, lime leaves, shallots and galangal, used for marinades, soups, stews and curries.[11] Her master recipe, shared with NPR's Morning Edition, makes 2 cups from lemongrass, galangal, garlic, shallot and makrut lime leaves pounded in a mortar.[12][13] Other recipes include a cabbage salad and kuy teav Phnom Penh, pork noodle soup.[11] Yun has said Cambodian cuisine sits in the shadow of Thai and Vietnamese food because so much was lost in Cambodia's civil war.[11]

Recognition

  • Eater Young Guns (2018)[14]
  • Eater Award, Breakout Star of the Year (2018)[4]
  • Zagat, "10 Under the Radar Chefs to Know in SF" (2018)[4]
  • Nyum Bai: Bon Appétit "Hot 10" list and a three-star Eater review (2018)[3][4]
  • Food & Wine Best New Chefs (2019)[6]
  • Time 100 Next[1]
  • Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Culinary Arts (2019)[4]
  • Carnegie Corporation of New York, Great Immigrants honoree (2019)[6]
  • Nyum Bai: Michelin Guide California, Bib Gourmand (2019)[14]

Works


See also

References 14
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 The San Francisco Standard, Nite Yun's new cookbook, 'My Cambodia,' is one of the year's best (October 10, 2025)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Bon Appétit, Chef Nite Yun's journey from refugee camp to Oakland restaurateur
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Carnegie Corporation of New York, Nite Yun, Great Immigrants honoree
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Vilcek Foundation, Nite Yun (March 12, 2025)
  5. ↑ tablehopper, Marcia Gagliardi, 510 Updates: Nyum Bai Opens in Emeryville, Comal's Taco Bowls for Dreamers (February 7, 2017)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Carnegie Corporation of New York, Nite Yun, Great Immigrants (June 26, 2019)
  7. ↑ tablehopper, Marcia Gagliardi, Nyum Bai Closes Original Location, Johnny Doughnuts Moving, 24th Street Cheese Company Is for Sale (May 17, 2022)
  8. ↑ The Bold Italic, Virginia Miller, 7 Foods From Outside Lands 2022 We're Still Craving (August 9, 2022)
  9. ↑ Death in Cambodia, Life in America Podcast, Chef Nite Yun on Chef's Table, Khmer cuisine, and cooking through grief (September 28, 2025)
  10. ↑ NPR, Chef Nite Yun showcases flavors of her parents' home in new cookbook, 'My Cambodia' (November 3, 2025)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 BPR, Nite Yun showcases the flavors of her parents' home in new cookbook 'My Cambodia' (November 3, 2025)
  12. ↑ KPBS, Chef Nite Yun showcases flavors of her parents' home in new cookbook 'My Cambodia' (November 3, 2025)
  13. ↑ NPR, Nite Yun showcases the flavors of her parents' home in new cookbook, 'My Cambodia' (November 3, 2025)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 KQED, Grace Cheung, 71 Bay Area Restaurants Make the Cut for 2019 Michelin Guide California Bib Gourmand List (May 28, 2019)
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This page was last edited on 27 October 2026, at 04:38.