A Culinary Journey

Dedicated to family and community, chef James Syhabout shares his personal history through food.

BY JOANNA DELLA PENNA

Chef James Syhabout’s destination restaurant

Commis is Oakland’s only Michelin-starred restaurant — but it doesn’t have just one star. Syhabout’s cuisine has garnered and maintained an incredible two Michelin stars, but don’t expect the 42-year-old chef, who is also chef-owner of casual Lao-Isaan street food eatery Hawker Fare in San Francisco, to fit the commanding stereotype of his renowned position.

Though exacting and highly disciplined, chef Syhabout (pronounced “si-ha-boot”) is also softly mannered, quick to smile, with a demeanor that’s all kind, humble confidence. He’s also a devoted community and family man, as dedicated to spending time in and around favorite Oakland locales with his wife and two children as he is working to guide his team in the kitchen.

Though he was born in Thailand, Syhabout has called Oakland home since he was two. He is the child of Laotian and Thai refugees who fled the widespread aftermath of the Vietnam War. His childhood was a bit different from other local kids — his mother ran a Thai restaurant, and he spent his free time and weekends helping with the family business.

From an early age, Syhabout knew he wanted to be a chef, first learning the flavors of his heritage, then studying European techniques and staging in some of the world’s finest restaurants — Manresa, The Fat Duck, El Bulli, and Coi. Always an Oaklander at heart, he eventually turned his laser focus back home, choosing to bring exceptional fine dining to his hometown with the opening of Commis in 2009. After only four months in operation, the restaurant received its first Michelin star.

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“Fentons Creamery for ice cream. Gum Kuo or Vien Huong for nights out.”

Syhabout eventually grew nostalgic. In addition to incorporating delicious flavors from his background into dishes at Commis, he launched both a restaurant and cookbook with the same name: Hawker Fare. Both tell the very personal story of Syhabout and his family’s journey with Lao and Thai food through an immigrant’s lens. For Syhabout, it’s a journey that continues. A story told in all of his introspective cooking — from high-touch to casual — and it’s one that feeds and enriches the community right here in Oakland.