Cuisine Wat Damnak showcases Cambodian dishes using locally sourced, seasonal ingredients with classic French techniques. The result is a unique cuisine that stays faithful to its Cambodian heritage. Chef Joannès Rivière is behind the restaurant’s success which focuses on seasonality with monthly-changing tasting menus.
Joannes grew up in France, but his family didn’t always cook typical French food. Instead, around Christmas and Birthdays, they would often have larp, a Cambodian minced meat dish – thanks to Joannes’ uncle who served as a pilot in Cambodia in the 1970s.
Later in life, Joannes became a volunteer culinary teacher and restaurant manager in Cambodia in August 2003, before opening the original Cuisine Wat Damnak in Siem Reap in 2011. The restaurant served Cambodian cuisine with a menu that changed every two weeks and a focus on lesser-known dishes to even Cambodian people.
The restaurant’s success led to them reaching 43rd in Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2016 – the only restaurant in Cambodia to ever appear on the list. The Siem Reap restaurant has since closed due to COVID. However, in March 2021, Cuisine Wat Damnak reopened in Phnom Penh, aiming to carry on the restaurant’s mission.
Table of Contents
The Menu
Cuisine Wat Damnak offers two monthly changing tasting menus; a standard 7-course menu and a plant-based version, suitable for both vegans and vegetarians. The dishes on the menu are created from a wide array of ingredients, showcasing the nature of Cambodia on a plate. Though we didn’t try the plant-based menu, it’s clear from just reading it that it’s not just an afterthought. Instead of simply making meat substitutes, the plant-based menu is a completely unique experience and one that sounds extremely tasty.
This review is of their January 2022 Tasting Menu.
1 – Pan-Fried Mekong Sole
Lime Pepper Sauce
A classic white fish, fried in butter so it melted in your mouth. On the side was a typical Cambodian sauce, a combination of lime juice, pepper and salt – the perfect accompaniment to many Cambodian dishes.
2 – Prawn, Long Eggplant and Wild Eggplant
Shrimp Paste, Tamarind and Chambok Seeds
A juicy king prawn, fried in butter sat atop a shrimp paste and tamarind glazed aubergine. They sandwiched a paste of wild eggplant, pounded with herbs and spices. Decorated with crunchy Chambok seeds and wild herbs.
3 – Quail Filet and Leg Dumpling Skewer
Fresh, Steamed and Fermented Cabbage
A skewer of gamey and peppery quail leg dumplings and quail fillets which had been glazed in an aged and salted lime glaze. The skewer rested on a salad of fresh, steamed and slightly sour fermented cabbages, dressed in a nutty sesame sauce.
4 – Pig Head Samlor Korkor
Jackfruit, Rice, Coconut
Slow-cooked pig head, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried to give a crunchy exterior and a soft gelatinous porky centre. Underneath, the Samlor Korkor, a traditional Cambodian soup with a light coconut broth, green jackfruit and jackfruit seeds which tasted similarly to pea shoots. Nestled in the broth was a smooth puree of toasted rice and pork stock. On the side was a bowl of rice to help you scoop up all of the coconutty and pork flavours in the broth.
5 – Sanday Fish
Green Peppercorn, Young Watermelon, Green Mango
Sanday fish, poached in a rich, sweet and spicy sauce of caramelised sugar and green Kampot peppercorns. Chunks of candied pomelo and young watermelon (tasting like courgette), sat atop the fish in a spicy tomato puree. Finally, shredded green mango finished the dish with some herbs and peanuts, adding a contrasting sour crunch.
6 – Pandan Coconut Sorbet
Chocolate Soil
A smooth pandan coconut sorbet rolled in a salty and crunchy chocolate soil. Simple, refreshing coconutty goodness.
7 – Pumpkin, Egg Custard and Toasted Coconut Cream
Palm Sugar, Wild Cinnamon, Samai Rum
The final dish, or so we thought. At the base, a kind of pumpkin pie tasting puree of pumpkin, palm sugar and wild cinnamon, braised in Samai rum. The next layers were an egg custard, toasted coconut whipped cream and nuggets of salty pumpkin praline. The whole thing tasted like a mix between eggnog and pumpkin spiced latte.
8 – Selection of Cambodian Fruits
Gandaria, Palm Seed, Kamias, Apple Puree
To our surprise, at the end of the meal, our waiter brought out a plate of fruits from the chef. Starting on the right, a type of cucumber called kamias. It tasted really sour, like one of those toxic-waste sour sweets you could get as a kid. In the middle was a plum, also known as gandaria, which tasted like and had the texture of sweet mango. Next up, were the roots of the palm, which tasted of a sugarcane-like sweetness.
Finally, on the far left, was a type of apple, called wood apple. It wasn’t like any apple I’d tasted before. Instead, it had a cheesy funk, mixed with a sour tamarind-like flavour and raisin-like fruity sweetness. A mix of lime, chilli, sugar and salt stretched along the plate, which you could dip the fruit into. This is a typical addition to fruit in Cambodia, used to bring out the fruit’s flavour and contrast with the sourness of the cucumber.
The Drinks
Pomelo and Ginger Martini (Bottom Left), House Infused Kuy Fruit Rice Wine (Bottom Right)
There isn’t a drink pairing to go with Cuisine Wat Damnak’s Tasting Menu. However, you won’t be disappointed by the drinks they have on offer. What excited us most were the cocktails, which took classic drinks like your mojitos and martinis, and put interesting Cambodian twists on them with the addition of ingredients like kaffir lime or pomelo. Each one was fantastic, and maybe if it wasn’t too late I would have tried out their Holy Basil Martini or their Tamarind Collins.
Ending the evening we decided to try some of the dessert wines, and Cuisine Wat Damnak offers two from Cambodia. Firstly, a rice wine that’s made in-house using Kuy fruits – yellow-orange fruits grown in the Cambodian jungle that is a mix of sweet and sour. Secondly, a passion fruit wine that came from the hilly Mondulkiri province in Northern Cambodia.
The Experience
Escaping from the noisy city life of Phnom Penh, you find yourself in the quiet and laid-back villa of Cuisine Wat Damnak. You have the option to eat inside the villa, with the cooling breeze of the A.C. Or, like us, you can sit in the open-air garden, in the Cambodian evening warmth. Even outside, you’re not too far away from the action of the kitchen as there’s a large window where you can see chefs plating the dishes.
The service was good, the waiters were kind and welcoming. For one course, we had to ask for cutlery because they had forgotten to bring them. However, despite this, the dishes came out at a good pace. With each dish, we got a description of the ingredients and some of the cooking techniques, although it was the same description that was written on the menu.
Closing Thoughts
This was one of the best meals we had during our month-long trip around Cambodia. Granted you can find great street food around the country, which will only set you back a few dollars. However, sometimes you want to take a break from backpacker life and enjoy the finer things in life, and Cuisine Wat Damnak is just the place for that.
It was a struggle to find good restaurants in Cambodia that offered a truly Cambodian fine dining experience, with a tasting menu. From our research, most of these other restaurants were too expensive and they generally stuck to French dishes with French ingredients using French cuisine. But, not Cuisine Wat Damnak.
Cuisine Wat Damnak stands out amongst the crowd of Phnom Penh’s fine-dining restaurants, with its unique and inventive take on Cambodian dishes, using lesser-known and locally sourced ingredients. And for the price, it’s hard to beat. Trust me, the entire tasting menu costs the same as two dishes from a lot of these “high-end fine dining” restaurants.
Pricing and Details
Tasting Menu: $38
Plant-Based Tasting Menu: $34
Address: 29 Samdech Mongkol Iem St. (228), Phnom Penh
Book here: Cuisine Wat Damnak Booking
Thanks for reading and make sure you give Cuisine Wat Damnak’s Tasting Menu a try!
