Doi Ka Noi

Doi Ka Noi was the first Lao restaurant to ever be in Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards, ranking 86 on the extended list in 2025.

From 2014 to its closure in 2025, Doi Ka Noi, proudly showcased Laos’ rich culinary heritage. Noi offered a small weekly changing menu of dishes created with market-fresh ingredients. 

Doi Ka Noi was opened for those who wanted to experience traditional Lao cuisine. Noi was uncompromising. She did not adjust recipes for those who couldn’t eat spicy food and refused to cater for vegans as almost all dishes use fish sauce or pa daek, essential ingredients in Lao food. All dipping sauces and stocks were homemade, and she never used MSG or stock powders in any of her food.

Most recipes were inherited from her grandmother, who Noi cooked with from a tender age. In recent years, she had become increasingly interested in regional ethnic cuisines in the north and would regularly feature dishes of the Linten, Tai Lue, Tai Dam, Haw Chinese, and more. These recipes will be the focus of Noi’s posthumous second book.

Noi appeared on CNN, French TV, and taught Danish celebrity chef, Timm Vladimir about Lao food when he visited the country. She was the first Lao member of Slow Food and was invited to present her cuisine at the organisation’s Terra Madre Salone del Gusto in Turin.

Austin Bush, the author of Lonely Planet: Laos said of Doi Ka Noi “It took one meal for Doi Ka Noi to become one of our favourite restaurants in Laos. With a menu that changes daily, the dishes here range from Lao standards to regional specialities most of us have never heard of, with something to appeal both to newbies and grizzled foodies.”

Each weekly menu at Doi Ka Noi, Noi showcased the incredible diversity of local ingredients and the delicious dishes that can be created with them. 

Depending on the season, what looks good in the market, and what Noi wanted to cook, the menus could include Lao favourites such as naem khao, rice ball salad with soured pork, kua kai mot daeng sai kai gai, stir fried weaver ant eggs, sup nor mai, grilled bamboo salad with mint and roasted rice powder, or less well-known dishes such as oua hua si khai sai moo, lemongrass stuffed with pork, glass noodles and herbs, and yam mak eua leuang sai moo ping, Xam Nuea-style salad with yellow aubergines, flower and grilled pork.

These recipes and 120 more are now safeguarded on the pages of
A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi’s Lao Kitchen.