Meet our chef

CULINARY BACKGROUND

Chef Pim opened her first restaurant, Kin Khao in San Francisco in 2014. It won international acclaim and its first Michelin star in 2015, only one year after its opening. Her second restaurant, Nari, earned its own Michelin star in 2024.

I was born and raised in Bangkok, and still consider myself a Bangkok girl at heart. My childhood home was very near the Central Business District, where nahm is located. The whole city is intimately familiar to me —  its rhythm, energy and flavours. My work takes me all over the world, but when I get back to Bangkok after a period of travel, it’s an assault to the senses. It’s a city that feeds your dreams with its technicolour of noise, sound and light, flaring at every hour of the day. 

I split my time between Bangkok, New Zealand and the United States — an arrangement that began when I was a student. I didn’t go to culinary school; I was headed for Silicon Valley. With that in mind, I went to college in the United States, studying Materials Science and Engineering. I started cooking when I was homesick, and searching for familiar flavours from my childhood — things made the traditional way, like when I was growing up. But I couldn’t find any Thai food that I wanted to eat.

Chasing authenticity has become my guiding principle in how I cook. That and finding enjoyment in the process — just as I did all those years ago as a student making my first batches of chilli jam. The key lies in local, fresh ingredients. When I'm in my kitchen in Bangkok, you're not going to see strawberries or truffles; I try to avoid using ingredients that are shipped halfway across the world. At nahm, we grow some of our own herbs and spices on the roof — ming aralia, pandan, jasmine, and other edible flowers that I can trace from seed to bloom. I’d love it if we had our own farm, but we’re in the middle of Bangkok's Central Business District; that’s not realistic. Instead, I’ve cultivated relationships with artisans and small farmers throughout Thailand. Supporting small-scale farmers and producers is essential. I seek out artisanal products and ingredients wherever possible — a shrimp paste producer halfway down the southern peninsula of Thailand, for instance, or a tiny fishing cooperative. Chefs aren’t the be-all and end-all of the culinary system. If I don’t have the best coconut, or palm sugar, or shrimp paste, there’s only so much I can do to make my food taste good. 

Learn more about Chef Pim’s journey to nahm, from her culinary origins to running kitchens and opening restaurants in some of the world’s most exciting cities here.