Top Chef Canada 2024 winner Chef Chanthy Yen – Embracing the flavours of Cambodia

Top Chef Canada 2024 winner Chef Chanthy Yen 

Embracing the flavours of Cambodia

By Lorie Steiner

Chef Chanthy Yen became an audience favourite when he competed in Top Chef Canada 2024, and the joy when he won was celebrated by friends, family and well-wishers near and far! Now, you’re invited to join Chef Chanthy on a luxury Mekong River cruise to Cambodia and Viet Nam, as he hosts a culinary journey to his homeland aboard award-winning Emerald Cruises in October 2026.

I recently asked Chef Chanthy for insights into Southeast Asian culture and cuisine from his unique perspective as a BIPOC Canadian chef with deep Cambodian roots. Kind, clever and genuine, Chef Chanthy tells it like it is… straight from the heart. 

H: How would you describe Chanthy Yen?

C: I was once just a little boy in my grandmother’s kitchen, and I’ve grown to be a person who creates space for other people. I try to make a difference in this industry; to lead a kitchen of kindness and promote my cultural heritage. 

I’m trying to champion Cambodian cuisine because it speaks the most to me. As you can see in the finale of Top Chef Canada, I kind of held back from what I really wanted to represent – and that is Cambodian food. In my current position, I oversee the culinary program at 14 Italian restaurants and concepts for Kitchen Table Restaurant Group (KTG). In Vancouver, we have MICHELIN recommended restaurants like Bacaro, Carlino and Ask for Luigi, as well as Mercato’s pasta factories and cafés.

I oversee over 400 employees in the group and I’m making sure they understand the psychology behind kinder kitchens and treating people with respect. It’s a standard for me and I’m trying to do that in multiple locations and areas in the restaurant industry. While there aren’t opportunities to integrate Cambodian ingredients in the Italian restaurants, there are opportunities to cook from the heart. That’s what I teach and mentor most: Find your culinary journey, offer that mentorship in the kitchen and make people fall in love with food again.

H: What inspires your culinary passion? 

C: I think the passion comes from the imbalance of cuisine today. I really want to have an unrepresented cuisine out there. I’ve had many opportunities to highlight that in menus across Canada and I find myself to be a first in a lot of places: the very first BIPOC chef to represent Canada on a global scale as the chef to the Prime Minister of Canada; I think the very first Canadian BIPOC chef to ever win the title of Top Chef. I find myself in these situations where I don’t have someone to look up to or to mentor me, so I have to muster the strength to just go for it.  

The passion for food comes from my upbringing with my grandmother, how nurturing she was. Every bowl of rice came with love. She integrated me not just in the way she cooked, but in our lifestyle. We’d go out into the garden, pick herbs and veggies and make rice together. I was attached to her leg for many years as a child. 

H: Is it true that your dream of opening a Cambodian restaurant in Canada is about to happen?

C: Yes! Winning Top Chef really changed my mind set and reset my goals in life – and I’m finally opening up a Cambodian restaurant in Vancouver.

The new restaurant is actually an old restaurant that activated my culinary career. The restaurant is called TOUK, which means ‘boat’ in Khmer. It’s like a boat that takes you on culinary journeys, introducing you to the pillars of flavour of Cambodian cuisine.  As a popup in Montreal during the pandemic, I was able to bring a team together and put Cambodian cuisine on the map. I won Chef of the Year in Montreal; it allowed me to grace the pages of Bon Appetit magazine, Canada’s 100 Best, and even be highlighted in Cambodia and the UK. TOUK allowed me to have a louder voice and talk about the food, and I really appreciated that. 

Now, we’re bringing TOUK to Vancouver. It will be something extremely original and authentic and will challenge the culinary industry here because it will be, again, a first.

TOUK is located at 1152 Alberni St. Vancouver, BC. Follow @touk.yvr on Instagram for updates.

Voyage with Chef Chanthy Yen on a luxury, Emerald Cruises Mekong River cruise.

In October 2026, Chef Chanthy Yen will host an immersive Emerald Cruises Mekong River cruise from Vietnam to Cambodia, where guests will not only experience the region’s rich history and landscapes, but also taste its soul, through exclusive dishes and storytelling led by Chanthy himself.

H: Will this be your first time hosting a culinary cruise?

C: I’ve never even been on a cruise before, and my partner, Cameron, is coming with me, so this is going to be a really exciting experience. The Mekong River has nourished so many people and so many countries that offer the fundamental ingredients in Cambodian cuisine. The places we’ll be touring are extremely important to me. I’m so honoured.

I recently returned from cooking in Cambodia with Raffles Hotels. The ability to cook with local chefs opened up my eyes to new ways of exploring the indigenous ingredients found in Cambodia. The coffees, the cocoa, the peppercorns, the vanilla… there’s so much to offer and those are just things that are popular in the market. I’m finding ingredients that I’ve never touched before. To be able to work with them and to hear other people’s stories is amazing. 

H: Are you creating the menu?

C: Absolutely, the dishes will all be developed by me and I want to integrate a couple from the final menu that won me Top Chef Canada, just to give guests the full Top Chef experience. My menu will be developed to use local ingredients from Cambodia but also integrate ingredients from home as well, so that I can bring some of the bounty and diversity of British Columbia. Part of being Cambodian-Canadian is adapting our dishes to the local ingredients from Canada and I look forward to the opportunity to express myself and be innovative with those flavour pairings. 

H: Any last words to tempt our readers to join you?

C: I’m definitely going to consider this Emerald Cruise as a homecoming – taking the audience on a trip along the Mekong River in a beautiful cruise ship and sharing these personal stories. I really want to highlight the culture and introduce Canadians to Cambodian cuisine. And I’ll be bringing maple syrup in my bag, just in case. 😊