For most visitors, eating out in Phnom Penh comes as a pleasant surprise for a city of its small size. The Cambodian capital boasts an abundance of excellent restaurants, from casual alfresco eateries to fancier fine diners.
While there are plenty of restaurants serving wonderful Cambodian cuisine, a bonus for those who have been travelling for a while is the plethora of ethnic eateries serving all kinds of cuisines, including French, Chinese, Italian, Indian, Mexican, and Japanese.
On our first trip to Phnom Penh four years ago, like most first-time visitors to Cambodia, we didn’t quite know what to expect from Cambodian cuisine. Would it be like Thai food? A little like Vietnamese? Or perhaps something like Laotian? What we quickly discovered is that Cambodian cuisine shares culinary techniques, ingredients and flavours with all of its neighbours, and yet it’s uniquely Cambodian at the same time.
Cambodian food can be rich and fragrant and also a little spicy, yet nowhere near as spicy and fiery as some of the regional Thai cuisines can be, like that of southern Thailand and the northeastern Isaan region. Some Cambodian dishes have the lightness, simplicity and fresh clean flavours of Vietnamese, while other dishes also have the depth and complexity of Thai curries.
When Cambodian food is hearty it lacks the refinement of similar Vietnamese dishes and is more like comfort food, especially when it comes to Cambodian curries. And when it’s sour, it can be even more tangy, bitter and pungent than Thai food, particularly the Khmer soups.
The French influence is also felt in some Cambodian favourites, like the baguettes used to scoop up curries, for instance, while other dishes are distinctly South East Asian, like the very tasty amok trey, a steamed fish curry made with fresh coconut milk. You can expect to read a lot more on Cambodian cuisine here. We’re hooked.
These are some of the restaurants where we enjoyed eating out in Phnom Penh.
Eating Out in Phnom Penh
Romdeng
Busy, buzzy and dishing up brilliant food, Romdeng is a real delight. If we hadn’t have been in Phnom Penh writing a story for a magazine and therefore required to eat widely, we could have easily returned here a few times to try more dishes on the menu. We were in Cambodia for two weeks, and this was some of the tastiest food we had during our stay. (Update: we have since eaten at Romdeng many times and it’s been consistently delicious.)
We loved the grilled pork fillet stuffed with toasted fresh coconut, a two-colour pomelo salad with fresh shrimp and toasted coconut, a Kampong Sam-style prawn curry served with French bread, and a Khmer Muslim beef and peanut Saraman curry that is similar in style to a Thai Mussaman curry. It was all delicious.
Set in a restored colonial mansion, Romdeng has tables in a vibrant downstairs space, decorated with colourful art on the walls, and another upstairs room, used during monsoon. We dined on the breezy veranda overlooking the leafy courtyard and lush garden.
A training centre staffed by kids rescued from the streets (so you know your money is going to a good cause), Romdeng is frequented by a microcosm of Phnom Penh society, its tables packed with NGO workers, business types, and travellers. It’s a fun restaurant. If you’re on a quick stopover and only have time for one place to eat, definitely make this it.
74, 174 Street, +855 (0) 9221 9565, www.tree-alliance.org
Malis
One of the first Cambodian fine dining restaurants in Phnom Penh, elegant Malis has long been one of the city’s best and its owner-chef Luu Meng considered one of Cambodia’s most outstanding chefs.
The prahok ktis – “most Cambodian famous dish”, made with fermented fish (prahok), minced pork, kroeung and coconut milk, and served with fresh vegetables or crudites – was delicious. Some home-made pork sausages, stuffed with pork, shredded coconut, and coriander, were tasty and juicy, and some of the best sausages we’ve ever eaten. The Cambodian chicken curry by contrast was a tad disappointing, under-cooked, and served on a flat board so the sauce dripped onto the table.
The day we dined the restaurant was empty and the waiting staff, obviously bored, watched us eat for most of our meal, then disappeared for the rest, so there wasn’t a soul around. It wasn’t the service you’d expect of a restaurant rated so highly. Was the manager off that day, we wondered? Having said that, we would return for the prahok ktis and sausages any day.
And we did – we’ve since eaten at the restaurant on a number of occasions. The food has been consistently good on other occasions, and it must be said that Malis has one of the longest menus of Cambodian dishes, with many not found elsewhere. The service can be hit and miss, just go for the food.
136 Norodom Boulevard, +855 (0) 2322 1022, www.malis-restaurant.com
The Sugar Palm
This is a sister restaurant to Cambodian-New Zealander Kethana Dunnet’s popular Siem Reap restaurant, The Sugar Palm. The food – fantastic, quality Cambodian cuisine – is easily as good here, but we preferred the atmosphere of the Siem Reap place, which is enchanting at night.
Here, we enjoyed a refreshing pomelo salad with shrimp and pork, the ubiquitous tasty minced pork dip, prahok ktis, that you’ll find on most menus (which I first fell in love with here), and a Khmer chicken curry that was hearty, sweet and pungent.
The Phnom Penh restaurant is on 240 Street, adjoining a cute little boutique called Binky Higgins – and there’s an entrance to the boutique within the restaurant, so you can try on some clothes while you wait for your food. The location, slap bang in the middle of Phnom Penh’s chic shopping street, means it’s an ideal refuelling stop if you’re out boutique-hopping.
19, 240 Street, www.thesugarpalm.com
Ngon
The Cambodian sister-restaurant to one of our favourite dining spots in Saigon, Nhà Hàng Ngon, Vietnamese restaurant, Ngon had just opened when we were in Phnom Penh and was packed with well-off Cambodians every day we passed by.
The place is beautiful – a frangipani-shaded courtyard with a terracotta tiled floor, surrounded by breezy open dining spaces with dark wooden screens, decorated with Vietnamese lanterns. Around the perimetre of the place are ‘hawker stalls’ and when you place your order, the waiter delivers it to one of the cooks at a stall.
In addition to the Vietnamese dishes, there were some Cambodian specialties, but aside from a sublime thick noodle soup with crab meat and pork, we didn’t find the food as impressive as the Saigon restaurant, and the service wasn’t as efficient. It had only been open for a short time, so it may have been teething problems. If you’ve eaten here, we’d love to know what you thought of it.
60 Sihanouk Boulevard, +855 (0) 987 151
Tepui
Tepui is located upstairs at historic Chinese House, a grand mansion dating back to the early twentieth century, near the shipping yards at the far end of Sisowath Quay. (Get a tuk-tuk here.) Tepui had also just opened when we were in town in a space that had previously been a bar, and the bar was moved downstairs into the former art gallery.
The dining space is stunning, and I’d love to say go and experience the restaurant for the atmosphere alone, but who really does that? The food by Venezuelan chef Gisela Salazar Golding was a tad disappointing when we dined. The menu was reminiscent of 1980s fusion – too many flavours that couldn’t possibly work together – and of three dishes we ate none of them really impressed.
The colossal, high-ceilinged room with hanging Oriental lanterns and Chinese ‘antiques’, including a beautiful bed, is a delight to dine in, however, so perhaps ask locals how the food is when you’re in town. The cocktails were also brilliant, but we’ll tell you about those in another post.
45 Sisowath Quay +855 (0) 2399 1514, Note: this restaurant is no longer, instead it’s jus Called China House and has a different concept.
*Yumi
One of the hippest spots in town, Yumi is a cool little Japanese izakaya on 288 Street, owned by young English chef Caspar von Hofmannsthal. There are wooden tables in a leafy courtyard at the front of the restaurant and diner-style booths inside the contemporary interior running alongside the bar, with views of the busy open kitchen. Tables are full most nights, so book ahead if you can.
Like Romdeng, the place has a buzz about it and a real mix of customers – mostly hip and young – which always makes things fun. Caspar takes things pretty seriously too, changing dishes according to what he finds fresh at the market each morning, so the menu is tweaked every day.
On the night we dined there were traditional izakaya stalwarts like tempura, sushi and yakitori, with contemporary twists, such as gyoza filled with pumpkin instead of pork, and ribs that tasted almost Texan. 29A, 288 Street, +855 (0) 9216 3903
*Pacharan
The entrance to this fun Spanish tapas bar can be a little tricky to find. The restaurant is on the first floor of a big yellow colonial mansion opposite Sisowath Quay – look up and you might see diners on the balcony – but the entrance is around the corner. The place was busy with a predominantly expat crowd the night we ate here, and it’s authentic Spanish tapas and traditional dishes like paella that is bringing them here.
We loved the chorizo a la sidra, calamares fritos, and the albondigas – all as authentic and as tasty as any you’d find in Spain. While the kitchen staff looked Cambodian, the manager is half Uruguayan and lived in Barcelona for 12 years, so that has something to do with the authenticity.
The décor is stylish – wooden floorboards, a bar at the centre of the space, big mirrors, and banquette seating that runs along one wall, above which hangs a colossal painting. Add to that, Spanish/Latin music on the stereo, reasonable prices, and a sangria special that locals seemed to love.
389 Sisowath Quay, +855 (0) 224 394
Wikipedia has a handy Cambodian cuisine glossary.
*UPDATE, 2014: Since the time of writing, Yumi and Pacharan have closed. We’ll be posting a new Phnom Penh restaurant guide very soon.
Have you eaten at any of these restaurants? What were your impressions? Do you have any favourite Phnom Penh restos you’d like to share? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
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I didn’t eat at any of these places while there last week, but I did not have a bad meal anywhere we went while in Cambodia. I can’t say I was looking forward to the food before going–like you, I had no idea what to expect–so the fact that all of it was positively delicious only further enhanced an already awesome time in PP and Siem Reap.
Great review! Definitely going to have to try Romdeng, never even heard of it. I like Yumi and Pacharan too, but unfortunately, Pacharan just closed. Don’t know if its a remodel or something, but they had a big party the night before they closed. Will also add Sugar Plum to the list.
Glad you enjoyed the food too. I’m so surprised there aren’t more Cambodian restaurants outside Cambodia. I can’t recall ever seeing any to be honest. It’s amazing that we all know so much about Vietnamese and Thai, but little about Cambodian food. Don’t you think?
Thanks, Rebecca. Did you eat at Friends, maybe? It’s a sister-restaurant to Romdeng, but more casual and serving international food. It’s also popular.
What a shame about Pacharan. I hope they’re just renovating although the place looked stunned. The manager didn’t say anything when we were chatting about it. I’ll email and ask, and make a note above.
Will try Sugar Plum when we return – thanks for the tip!
I’m bookmarking this page! I probably won’t get to Phnom Penh until next winter, but it’s always good to have some quality dining recommendations on hand. Looking forward to trying out these places.
Thanks, Brian! Do get back to us after you’ve been and let us know how you found these – and if you made some new discoveries of your own. Thanks for dropping by!
We were in Phnom Penh last year and ate at Friends and Daughters of Cambodia, both of which were fantastic. The food and service were excellent at both. We also bought some very nice items at their stores which we have received many compliments on, and we got an excellent foot massage at the Friends store. I highly recommend Friends and Daughters of Cambodia.
Hi Lois – we did try Friends, actually – thank you for reminding me, as I was going to put it in my cafes and bars post. We didn’t have time to get to Daughters of Cambodia, but I wanted to go. Next time. I had wanted to look at the shops, but never had a chance – it was a really busy trip – but I know I’ll be back. Thanks so much for those tips!
Like Brian, I am probably not going to Phnom Penh in the near future, but this write up made me interested about going. I love reading about food, great post! thanks!
Hi Tim – as I said when I responded to your similar comment under accommodation, we don’t include prices, because:
1) prices change, and I know from guidebook writing that out-of-date prices are not helpful to readers (nor restaurant owners when travellers make a fuss about the prices not correlating)
2) there are URLs or contact details above for people who want to go and check prices in advance before they dine somewhere, but how many people really do that? Most look at a menu in a restaurant entrance, then decide whether they want to eat there or not.
3) this isn’t a budget travel website – other than for our Price Check/Shopping List series, the price of things is not our main concern here – when we travel, prices don’t dictate where we state and especially don’t guide where we eat. We are interested in good food primarily.
Except for the occasional guide (eg. my Italian Lakes guide in The Independent), the vast majority of publications we write for, both magazines and newspapers, don’t ask for prices, especially within narrative features.
Thanks, Tobias! Glad we have you intrigued by Phnom Penh. I would love to go back.
Great details, but where are the prices? Even in those magazines paying expenses they usually list a range for meals or main dishes. I know Cambodia is cheap, but for people watching the budget (or just traveling with a family), it’s best to know what you’re in for before walking through the doors, no?
That’s a lot more useful than a phone number that will probably be answered in the local language anyway.
I would define this as a service piece, not a narrative. As in where to spend your money in a destination.
Regardless, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s used to at least getting a hint of this in reviews. Maybe foreign mags/papers are different though.
Cambodia is cheap enough that it’s not a big deal. But in other cities I wouldn’t use this because the additional research to go hunt down a menu with prices is too much extra work. Maybe it’s different if you have an expense account or are wealthy enough that it doesn’t matter. I’m not there yet…
Tim, if you’re looking for prices simply click through to the links to the sites for room rates, menus, etc. As I’ve said, we don’t find prices helpful as travellers nor as travel writers, mainly because prices change continually, and out of date prices aren’t helpful to anyone.
Aside from our Price Check/Shopping List series, what things cost is not the focus of our site. This is not a budget travel site, we’ve never claimed it is, and we’re not interested in it becoming one.
We don’t make decisions as to where to eat based on the price of the food – we’re interested in the quality of the cuisine, who the chef is, what they’re doing, are they using fresh local produce, are they sustainable, is the service good, does the place have atmosphere, etc. When it comes to hotels, we look for properties with character, style, comfort, and space, we look at the location, the neighbourhood, etc, and then we consider the price. These are the things that interest us as travellers as much as travel writers. We look at prices last. And we’re not wealthy either, we just have other interests/priorities.
It’s your blog, so nobody can complain about what’s missing really (since it’s free info after all.) But when I see restaurant or hotel reviews without even a range of prices or a comparison, I get suspicious. I figure either the writer got everything for free or is getting expenses paid by their company. Otherwise, it usually says “main dishes $10- to $22″ or $40-$70 before drinks and tip”. Every traveler is on a budget, whether they’re a “budget traveler” or not. Especially in these lean times when people are struggling to even take a vacation abroad in the first place. Robb Report and Departures list prices in their reviews and they’re aimed at the top 1% of earners who you would think don’t need to worry about cost.
I loved your grocery store price round-ups when you were staying in the villas in different cities, by the way. And all the great food photos when you cooked it up!
Hi Linda – we personally find prices for meals on blogs/sites/guides pretty unhelpful, especially when out of date. And having updated/written guidebooks for years, I know how quickly these things change and share the frustrations of readers when information is correct. I think it’s more helpful to include a link and let people click through and check menu prices. As I also said to Tim, we don’t make decisions as to where to eat based on prices. Our top priority is the cuisine, the quality, the style, whether the chef is experimenting, whether the kitchen is using local seasonal produce etc, then, depending on what we’re doing, who we’re writing for, who our readers are, other factors will come into play, such as the atmosphere or the design or the location etc.
Sure, there are publications and sites that list prices, but there are just as many that don’t. I’ve just checked similar guide-style stories in a handful of magazines that I have in front of me – National Geographic Traveler, Australian Traveller, Sumptuous, and Gourmet Traveller – and they don’t have prices for meals, but what they do have are detailed descriptions of the restaurant, the food, the chef, etc, and that’s what I find helpful.
We’ve never worked for a publication that pays expenses – I wish I had, but most don’t these days – and the issue of whether writers who eat for free can be trusted is one I’ve written about at length on my personal blog Cool Travel Guide, and plan on addressing again soon over there. Most reviewers, in all fields, get things free to review – movie reviewers are given cinema tickets or sent DVDs, music reviewers are sent free CDs by record companies, book reviewers are sent free books, food writers get kitchen equipment, wine reviewers are given wine and so on, and yet the objectivity of those reviewers are rarely questioned. Yet for some reason travel writers ethics are continually called into question. Having said that, we paid for all the meals above out of our own pocket and – aside from Tepui about which we’re quite critical – have only written about the places we enjoyed and think our readers would enjoy.
Thanks for your kind words re Price Check and the food pics. Much appreciated.
Thanks, guys! I think Friends the Restaurant has veggie dishes, and Romdeng may well also. They do have some rice paper rolls that are similar to the Vietnam rolls that are vegetarian. I’d try good restaurants like Sugar Palm too, ran by a Cambodian-New Zealander, who would probably be sympathetic and cook you up something if she didn’t have anything on the menu – there’s one in Phnom Penh and the original in Siem Reap. Thanks for dropping by!
I’ve bookmarked this for when we get to Cambodia (hopefully early next year). For us it’s going to be interesting to see how Cambodia is for vegetarians.
Hi Lara,
I wanted to drop you a line to say that I agree with most of your reviews on the above restaurant and respect your taste!
I live in Phnom Penh and write restaurant reviews for a local website (www.Khmer440.com) and I find your comments are an excellent guide to what’s good and what’s not.
While most people rave about Malis, I’ve also had your experience on my two visits there and find it rather over-rated. And I think you’re also the only person who agrees with me about Tepui — also over-rated and highly priced.
As for me, I prefer to eat at smaller and more local restaurants which give great value and great food. My newest favourite is The Indian Delights on the riverfront which is fabulous Indian food with amazing service and really cheap prices (entrees between $3 and $6.50 for those who want prices).
Thanks again for your feedback and please let me know if you’re out this way again.
Gabrielle
Hi Gabi
I’ve only just discovered this comment of yours, when checking something on this post. So sorry for overlooking it – it came in at a super-busy period when we were travelling.
Thank you so much for your kind words. Much appreciated. It’s interesting that we agree 🙂
I was hoping that Tepui had improved, as we dined there just after it opened. I was hoping that they might have rewritten the menu – or hired a new chef by now! – what a shame, as we were prepared to give them another chance.
We love small local places too, street food as well – we love the full spectrum of eating possibilities, to be honest! We’re back in Phnom Penh now – in fact we’re making it our base for a while – so will definitely be trying Indian Delights and checking out your blog for tips.
Thanks for dropping by!
We’re back in Phnom Penh and setting up a base here for a while.