Chef Chanthy Yen brings Cambodian heritage, French technique and British Columbia ingredients together at one of Vancouver’s most distinctive new restaurants.
By Robert Lawrence Vancouver
Vancouver has no shortage of impressive restaurants, but the places that stay with you are usually the ones with a clear identity. That is what makes Touk worth paying attention to.
Located at 1152 Alberni Street in downtown Vancouver, Touk is the contemporary Cambodian restaurant from Chef Chanthy Yen, winner of Top Chef Canada Season 11. The restaurant brings together Cambodian flavours, French culinary influences and ingredients from British Columbia in a way that feels polished, modern and unmistakably personal.
For Robert Lawrence Vancouver, Touk is exactly the kind of restaurant that makes Vancouver dining interesting: an accomplished chef, a compelling story and a menu that gives diners something beyond the familiar.
A Restaurant With a Story
The name Touk connects the restaurant to Cambodia’s Bon Om Touk Water Festival and to Chef Yen’s Cambodian-Canadian roots. According to the restaurant, the concept is built around stories of water, harvest, abundance and togetherness, while allowing British Columbia seafood, produce and seasonal ingredients to become part of the experience.
That heritage gives the restaurant depth without making the menu difficult to approach. There are familiar ingredients throughout—prawns, tuna, pork, beef, crab, rice and local seafood—but the flavours and combinations give them a different personality.
That balance is one of Touk’s strengths. Diners who may be new to Cambodian cuisine can begin with ingredients they recognize, while more adventurous guests have plenty to explore.
Chef Chanthy Yen Brings a Personal Perspective
Yen’s résumé is impressive. His culinary career has included work in Montreal and Vancouver, training under internationally recognized chefs Ferran Adrià and Andoni Luis Aduriz, and winning Top Chef Canada Season 11.
But the restaurant’s most important influence may be the one that came much earlier: his grandmother’s kitchen. Touk describes Yen’s cooking as a modern and deeply personal interpretation of Cambodian cuisine, rooted in the flavours and techniques that shaped his childhood while incorporating the experience he accumulated in restaurants around the world.
The result does not feel like a restaurant trying to imitate something else. Touk has its own point of view, and that matters in a city with an increasingly competitive dining scene.
The Menu Encourages Exploration
Touk’s current menu is particularly well suited to sharing. Smaller dishes include BC oysters with pickled cucumber, Koh Kong and dill; Tuna Crudo with coconut milk and fennel; Wagyu beef tartare; crispy chicken wings seasoned with roasted rice salt; and Prawn Nantua with sweet red curry, burnt lemon, black olive oil and puffed rice.
The Prawn Nantua is one of the dishes that best explains what Touk is trying to accomplish. Nantua comes from the language of French cooking, but Chef Yen takes the idea in a very different direction with Cambodian flavours and Pacific seafood.
It is the kind of dish that feels recognizable enough to be inviting while still giving diners something they are unlikely to find at most other Vancouver restaurants.
Saraman Brings Comfort to the Table
Another standout on the menu is Saraman, featuring beef cheeks in a fragrant curry with coconut cream and kabocha squash.
There is something immediately appealing about that combination. Slow-cooked beef cheeks bring natural richness and tenderness, while coconut cream and curry create the sort of sauce that seems made for a bowl of rice on the side.
Not every dish in a contemporary restaurant needs to be complicated. Sometimes the dishes that make the strongest impression are the ones built around comfort, warmth and depth of flavour.
The Fraser Valley Tomahawk Is a Signature
The dish most closely associated with Chef Yen may be the Fraser Valley Tomahawk.
Despite the name, this is not a giant beef steak. Touk’s current version is a Frenched pork chop served with Cambodian mole, browned butter and watercress salad.
The Cambodian mole is where the dish becomes especially interesting. Yen has described the sauce as incorporating ingredients such as cashews, chillies, star anise, cinnamon, peppercorns and fermented soybeans, creating a profile that is earthy, aromatic and layered.
The dish also connects directly to Yen’s Top Chef Canada journey. Vancouver food publication Daily Hive highlighted the Fraser Valley Tomahawk as a must-order and later included it among the best dishes its writers had eaten in Vancouver that month.
For a first visit, this is the kind of plate that deserves a place in the centre of the table. It is visually impressive, built around a familiar main ingredient and unmistakably connected to the chef’s own style.
Vancouver Seafood With a Cambodian Perspective
Touk also takes full advantage of its Vancouver location. BC oysters, albacore tuna, prawns, sablefish and Pacific snow crab appear across the current menu.
The Kampot Crab is an especially interesting example, pairing Pacific snow crab with yellow curry and fresh peppercorn. It is exactly the sort of combination that makes contemporary Vancouver dining compelling: a local ingredient presented through a culinary perspective rooted somewhere else.
The sablefish follows the same philosophy, currently served with burnt mango purée, pickled green peppercorn and fried collars. These dishes make the West Coast feel like part of Touk’s story rather than simply the restaurant’s location.
Save Room for Dessert
Dessert continues the restaurant’s willingness to try combinations that are unexpected but still inviting.
The Mochi Crueller is perhaps the most distinctive option, combining foie gras molasses anglaise, confit apple, pandan-basil oil and Kampot peppercorn gelato.
Other choices include Guava Cake with Earl Grey, burnt-marshmallow ganache and candied orange; Chocolate Mousse with cardamom, lemongrass and oolong tea; and Egg Coffee with cold egg foam, coffee gelato and cocoa.
At a restaurant with this much personality, dessert should continue the story rather than simply end the meal. Touk appears to do exactly that.
The Drinks Have the Same Personality
The beverage program follows the kitchen rather than feeling like a completely separate concept. Current cocktails use ingredients such as toasted rice, pandan, lemongrass, fermented rice, galangal, green mango and Kampot pepper.
The Kampot combines rye, Averna, banana skin, brown butter and Kampot pepper, while the Kha-Fey brings together brandy, coffee liqueur, toasted rice, cold brew and condensed milk.
There are also thoughtful zero-proof options, allowing guests who do not drink alcohol to experience the same level of creativity.
What Robert Lawrence Vancouver Would Order
For two people, I would keep a first visit focused: start with the Prawn Nantua, add the Tuna Crudo or oysters, choose either the Saraman or Fraser Valley Tomahawk as the larger dish, order Cambodian rice for the table and finish with the Mochi Crueller or Guava Cake.
For three or four people, add the Kampot Crab and another main. Touk is clearly the kind of restaurant where bringing more people to the table means getting to experience more of the menu.
Robert Lawrence Vancouver Verdict
What makes Touk worth highlighting is not simply that it is one of Vancouver’s newer restaurants. It is that the restaurant has a recognizable identity.
Chef Chanthy Yen is bringing Cambodian heritage, international culinary experience and British Columbia ingredients together in a restaurant that feels distinctly his own.
Vancouver already has exceptional steakhouses, Japanese restaurants, Italian dining rooms and seafood destinations. Touk adds something different to that landscape, and that is exactly what keeps the city’s restaurant scene interesting.
For diners looking for a polished downtown experience with beautiful food, a strong story and flavours that move beyond the usual restaurant menu, Touk deserves a place on the list.
For Robert Lawrence Vancouver, it is another example of why the city remains one of the most interesting places in Canada to explore food.
Best for: Date nights, special occasions, small groups, food lovers and visitors looking for something different.
Top dishes to consider: Prawn Nantua, Saraman, Fraser Valley Tomahawk, Kampot Crab and Mochi Crueller.
Touk
1152 Alberni Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
Lunch Tuesday–Friday, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.
Dinner Tuesday–Sunday, 5 p.m.–10 p.m.