In her previous life, Chutatip Nok Suntaranon was a flight attendant. Now, she's the best chef in the Central Atlantic according to the James Beard Foundation. Her fame comes from the restaurant Kalaya in Philadelphia, where she serves Southern Thai specialties.
The story
Chutatip Nok Suntaranon doesn't go unnoticed in the kitchen, starting with her elegance. This fascinating mature woman, who started cooking at the age of forty-eight, used to wear high-fashion outfits at work, until she was told they were highly inflammable. She's still charming when she walks around her tables, asking guests for feedback on how to improve (she even reaches out to those who reviewed her Kalaya without enthusiasm, trying to gather some advice). "People make mistakes. They learn, listen, and improve. My feet are still on the ground; I know I'm not perfect, and there's still plenty of room for improvement. We can never be too good," she explains to Insider.
"I never feel as good as when I'm in the restaurant," she smiles. Yet in her previous life, she did something completely different, even though food has always been very important to her. At the age of five, she was already selling curry paste at the Yan Ta Khao market with her mother, to whom she dedicated the restaurant, while her father worked as a hospital administrator and a self-employed truck driver. However, he had a gambling habit, to the point where the family lost their home at one point. "My mother is my hero," she says, recalling her daily struggle to provide her children with a roof over their heads, not depriving them of anything, and putting together their lunch and dinner.
The library was a safe haven, where she hid while searching for emotions, often perusing cookbooks and fantasizing about the possible taste of dishes. Then there was her paternal grandmother, who would arrive bearing delights from Bangkok, when she wasn't cooking herself, such as dumplings, explosions of flavor in a small bite, which she continues to emulate in ornithological forms (Nok, little bird, is her nickname). With her, always "super cool and sophisticated," she moved into a boarding house during high school.
Another passion was travel, and Suntaranon worked as a flight attendant for almost two decades, first for Kuwait, then for Thai Airlines, getting to taste food from all over the world (but never touching the onboard meals). In the meantime, she ran a jewelry business with a friend and collaborated in the opening of an Italian restaurant in Bangkok, Antonio, with her ex-husband. It was when she remarried Ziv Katalan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whom she met in flight, that she left her job and closed Antonio. Without his enthusiasm, she says, she would never have believed in her cooking abilities.
After studying at the French Culinary Institute in New York, internships, and experiences in various American restaurants, she started cooking for friends and neighbors before finding her own place in the Bella Vista neighborhood of Philadelphia and relocating to a larger location after the pandemic, a former warehouse that seats 183 in Fishtown. From there, a remarkable progression: nominated for several James Beard Foundation awards, the American Oscar of cuisine, she finally won the award for the best chef in the Central Atlantic. "But I don't consider myself that. I'm a cook, a middle-aged woman who loves good things and excellent ingredients. I love cooking and sharing. I was not wrong to bring the best Thai food to Philadelphia. I was not wrong to change it for nothing. I'm proud that it's now recognized at such high levels. What I want is to cook something good for the people here."
Cover photo: @Kae Lani Palmisano
