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Chiang Mai is unlike any Thai restaurant in town. A sampling of dishes: som tum, sakoo sai moo, gaeng hung lay, kab moo, sai oua and nua sawaan. | MABEL SUEN
[REVIEW]
Mother Knows Best Chiang Mai’s Thai food serves as a delicious tribute to chef Su Hill’s mom Written by
CHERYL BAEHR Chiang Mai 8158 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves; 314-961-8889. Tues.-Thurs. noon-8 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. noon-9 p.m. (Closed Sunday and Monday.)
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ome of Su Hill’s most foundational memories happened in her mother’s kitchen in Chiang Mai, Thailand. A revered home cook who was trained
in the domestic arts in Thailand’s Grand Palace, Hill’s mother would spend innumerable hours painstakingly preparing traditional Thai cuisine, selecting herbs from her garden, grinding spices, making curry paste, dicing vegetables and then dicing them again. It was tedious work — and to Hill, it was absolute drudgery. Looking back, Hill admits that she did not appreciate her mother’s lessons at the time of her instruction. A teenager more interested in doing the opposite of what her parents wanted her to do than in trekking down their well-worn path, Hill would always ask her mother why they had to do all of this work. Even after getting into the restaurant business herself in the United States, Hill had not fully embraced her mother’s teachings in traditional Thai cooking, and, instead, opted to work for Italian and pan-Asian restaurants in hotels throughout New York, the West Coast and Memphis. In the early 1990s, Hill settled in
Cape Girardeau to take over her brother’s small noodle shop. After running that for three years, she moved the restaurant to a larger space and rebranded it as Bistro Saffron, a pan-Asian eatery whose mix of Thai, Korean and sushi packs the house to this day. ill might have been satisfied with Bistro Saffron were it not for an awakening that happened after her mother’s death a few years ago. Struck by the reality that she could no longer simply pick up the phone to talk with her mom, she began thinking of the ways in which she could still feel her presence. Food was the obvious thread that bound her to her late mother, and she felt an overwhelming sense of duty to share her legacy with the world. As Hill thought through how she could go about doing that, it became clear that she should open a restaurant dedicated to honoring the traditions that were now in her hands. Chiang Mai is that homage to Hill’s mother. The restaurant,
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which opened in Webster Groves last October, is unlike any other Thai restaurant in town in that it is deeply personal, rooted in the family recipes Hill absorbed all those years ago, even when she didn’t know she was doing so. Focused on the dishes that, for Hill, define the cuisine of her hometown, the restaurant is a soulful showcase of northern Thai cuisine that differs from the more Bango -in ected dishes that are commonly seen in Thai restaurants throughout the United States. To bring her vision to life, Hill relied on another family connection. Her sister, Nippon Tei owner Ann Bognar, previously owned Tei Too, the restaurant that occupied the storefront where Chiang Mai now sits. Bognar sold the space to Hill, who began work on converting it to its current iteration not long before the pandemic shuttered restaurants across the area last March. Though the delay was frustrating, Hill admits it gave her time
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