Chef Nan Yimcharoen is one of LA’s most exciting new chefs. Originally from Bangkok, Thailand, she moved to the United States a decade ago and now made her mark on the Los Angeles culinary scene.

Nan’s culinary journey began with her family’s dinner cruise business in Thailand, where she developed a hospitality mindset and was trained by her grandmother, who once cooked for the Thai royal family. Her love for Japanese cuisine led her to train under several high-end Japanese chefs, honing her skills and blending Thai and Japanese flavors in innovative ways.

KinKan is now celebrated as a revelatory Thai-Japanese omakase restaurant, earning accolades from reputable publications as one of the city’s best new restaurants.

The following feature interview with Chef Nan Yimcharoen @KinKan Los Angeles was provided courtesy of Yelp LA.

**Chef Nan Yimcharoen @KinKan Los Angeles**

Restaurant: **KinKan Los Angeles**
Talent: **Chef Nan Yimcharoen**
Words: **Yelp** **/ Yelp Elite**
Interviewer: **Clinton Lu**
Transcribed: **Yvonne Bee** **(Yelp LA East Community Intern) /** **Margaret Palanca** **(Yelp LA East Senior Community Director)**
Managing Editor: **Chrissy Wang**
EIC: **Anthony Vu Cao**
Photos Courtesy of **KinKan Los Angeles**

KinKan is a mix between Thai and Japanese cuisine, so could you tell us about your history with both cuisines and your experiences with it?

Chef Nan: I was raised in Bangkok, Thailand. I moved to the US when I turned 30, married to my ex-husband. When the problem began with my eating because I couldn’t find the same good food back home. My grandma was a great home cook herself. Everyday at 7 PM, she would make a big family meal. She would make an omelet, and I wanted it everyday, or garlic shrimp, more of a central style of Thai cuisine. One day after school while growing up, I stopped by a restaurant. They had garlic shrimp, but it was not good. I went back home and told my grandma that I ordered the same thing she made, but it wasn’t good. She was laughing and told me that the ingredients they used might not be the same ones. She would tell me in detail and my ears would open about cooking. I wanted to know why her food was different. I didn’t know.

Chef Nan: For Thailand, if you’ve been there, they have good food everywhere. It’s a no-brainer to cook your own food. When I moved here, I couldn’t fully find the same thing they had back home. And then I tried to cook something based on memory. Later, I reached out to friends and family for the recipes. I made mistakes, but everyday I kept trying to make the same thing I had back home.

Chef Nan: For Japanese? It was my first trip to Japan with my good friend. She told me to go to Zero San (Second Son) in Roppongi, Tokyo. This was my first omakase sushi, and I thought this was good. This set my standard for Japanese cuisine to be very very high and I came back and said, “Now I know what good Japanese food tastes like”.

So you almost fell in love with Japanese cuisine?

Chef Nan: Yes, it was great. I love seafood. Thailand has lots of seafood, but in Japan, they have more variety and style, and so so much more. And the idea of omakase with the Chef’s choice of what’s best for you and how everything is placed in front of you was so good. I found myself at a sushi restaurant twice a week to try to experience the same experience I had in Tokyo. San Shi Go in Orange County was very very good. I was there during my first 5 years in the US and now I moved to LA for 10 years.

I fell in love with Japanese cuisine. Their ingredients, texture and quality are so perfect and Thai cuisine is very much about flavors. We can make cheap pork taste good and you wouldn’t know because of the Woah-factor of flavors like a punch in the face! But Japanese has a more delicate texture and I love that because there’s nothing to hide. Only a pinch of salt and a pinch of lemon.

Japanese cuisine is so delicate and worried about the nuances, where Thai seems like a blast of flavors—not that it’s overwhelming, but Thai food loves to give you a lot of flavors. How do you balance them?

Chef Nan: Because the way I grew up. Grandma was a big fan of flavors and chose the best ingredients. In the way she cooked, it was the way it was supposed to be. Shrimp tasted like shrimp, crab tasted like crab. So it’s honest. I’m not even a big fan of sauce, no sauce, why do we need sauce? It’s so good by itself. One thing she told me that I loved was “cooking is not just about what’s in it, it’s about when you put it in. Each ingredient needs a different timing for cooking, sometimes a bit longer. And when you put everything in, at the same time, then it will be overcooked.”

Like when you’re cooking shrimp in a soup, you’d put it at the end because shrimp cooks quickly. It’s the last thing before you serve it. If you leave it too long in the soup, it will be overcooked.

You took your heritage and love of Japanese cuisine and food in general and injected it into Kin Kan to create something about food and community. How did Kin Kan start?

Chef Nan: I was initially cooking for friends just for happiness, for fun, and to feed my soul. If I know you, I would be like “do you want to come over and I cook for you?” And [my friends] would be like “yes, of course!” And this became more frequent. My love for Japanese cuisine took five years to perfect my first omakase. I started cooking rice using a donburi, soaked the rice overnight and it tasted better. I added the fish and everything else. When my friends came over, I said “I want to cook omakase for you,” and they were excited and said “Nan, you should actually do this for a living.” I said no. But their friends and friends of friends also wanted to come, and my friends wanted me to charge them. That was nine months before COVID happened. I did underground omakase sushi in my apartment in Silver Lake. So, in those nine months, every night I started doing something with sashimi and onigiri and that’s how it started.

When COVID hit, people missed the food and asked me to do takeout for them. We all thought it would be four months, but it was a couple of years. And then, people wanted more, so I thought maybe I should have a restaurant. When the restaurant opened, I didn’t want to make just Japanese, so I wanted to combine two cuisines together — my love for Japanese cuisine because it’s so amazing and honest and my roots in Thai heritage. I wanted to touch upon that and in a way, complement each other. You’d still have the same texture of scallops but a touch of Thai flavors. So respectfully to the ingredients and Thai flavors, I try to create the best of both worlds.

Could you talk about the early parts of your life like when your grandma cooked for you and the history there?

Chef Nan: My grandma was a great home cook and loved to brag about things. My grandfather was in the Thai embassy and they spent time in Spain and Iraq, and when the King and Queen of the country visited, they had a chance to cook for them and they loved the food. When they told me, I was like “Woah, you got to cook for the king and queen?! So amazing.” For her, she knows she’s good. She taught me how to pick out our own crabs — everything from the sound and size. She was very peculiar and I get a lot of that from her.

This is an add-on to how I started, I don’t have much, I started from savings from COVID takeout orders and when grandma passed away, she left some money for me, so with those combined, I got and owned this restaurant 100%. The first tasting menu was my homage to her, my grandma, it’s all for her. I owe this to her, not just to the money, but myself and cooking and the love for food.

The first year [of opening the restaurant], everyone cried. My dad also passed away that year and my grandma passed shortly after. But when they were gone, I knew they were here [in the restaurant]. They can see who I’ve become from above with so much love, and see the same love for food that we shared.

This interview was conducted by the team at Yelp LA (Margaret P, Yvonne B, and their videographer, Clinton L). Be sure to stay tuned with local businesses found on their Instagram @yelpla. Heard of the Yelp Elite Squad? Learn more and nominate yourself to become a Yelp Elite at yelp.com/elite.