Peek Inside The Home Kitchen Of Acclaimed Chef Nuit Regular

If you've eaten Thai food in Toronto within the last 10 years, you've tasted the influence of Chef Nuit Regular.

As the culinary force behind the incredibly popular Thai restaurants Pai Northern Thai Kitchen, Sabai Sabai, and Sukho Thai⁠ — as well as the newly opened Kiin⁠ — Nuit has won international acclaim for her meticulous recreations of her country's rich flavours, while teaching thousands of Canadians to reject any pad thai made with ketchup.  

Nuit's dishes may have inspired an explosion of imitators in recent years, but hers are the result of decades of careful practice and generations of family wisdom. Growing up in Northern Thailand, much of Nuit’s youth was spent in the kitchen alongside her mother, aunt, and grandmother. Together, the women would cook elaborate meals for the rest of the family using locally sourced ingredients. 

Today, Nuit carries on this tradition by passing along her passion for home cooking to her own family: husband and business partner Jeff, daughter Marlee, and son Phai. “I always make time to cook at home, because it's my meditation,” explains Nuit. “I feel like it helps me when I'm feeling homesick. I’ll cook something that my mother cooked for me and feel close to her. And then I can explain to my children the history behind it.”

Staying true to her family’s recipes has always been important to Nuit. So when she and her husband decided to leave their village in Northern Thailand and move to his hometown of Toronto, Nuit's first worry was — of course — about food. Before her flight, she grabbed things like shrimp chips and beef balls, wrapping them tightly in her luggage so that if they broke en route, they wouldn’t make a mess. 

“Jeff told me, 'Well, we have Thai food in Canada, too,' and I didn’t believe him!” laughs Nuit. “I didn’t realize until Jeff took me to an Asian grocery store. I felt like I had found my heaven — I was so relieved!”

Any special ingredients that Nuit couldn’t find in Canada, she’d import directly from Thailand. This required a great deal of determination and creativity, especially when trying to maintain the freshness of vegetables and herbs like holy basil. “At the beginning it was tricky and very expensive,” admits Nuit. “But it was so, so worth it. The supplier had doubts when we started, but when he came into my restaurant and tried the food, he loved it! He started to think of other ingredients I could use and new ways to send them.”

Time is tight in the Regular household. Along with her roster of restaurants, Nuit participates in dozens of food events and fundraisers, and she even just launched a catering business, by chef nuit, on the side. But Nuit always injects the same amount of love into her home-cooked meals as she does at her restaurants⁠ — sometimes to her family's frustration. 

“Like at work, I make every meal we eat at home from scratch,” says Nuit. “I always cook with detail and attention, like my family taught me. It’s out of love; I want to be able to do this for them.” 

Of course, dishes made with love tend to take just a little longer. “On some nights, dinner might not be ready until 10:30, 11 p.m.,” laughs Nuit. “Sometimes my children want to go out to eat at a restaurant or order takeout. They’ll make an excuse, saying that it’s because they want to give me a break from cooking. But really it's because they don't want to wait.”

Since they first met on the back of an elephant when he was backpacking through Thailand, Nuit’s partner Jeff has been right by her side supporting her culinary adventures. But for their children, falling in love with food has been a longer journey. “At first, my son Phai wasn't interested in cooking,” says Nuit. “He'd walk over and ask what I was doing in the kitchen, and he'd be gone before I finished the sentence!”

Everything changed when Phai took a culinary class in high school, and the family tradition continued. “He wanted to see if he'd like it,” says Nuit. “When he told me he was going to George Brown College to study cooking, I was like, ‘What?!’ He said he wanted to learn how to help me in the kitchen, to learn about our recipes. I almost cried.” 

Favourite go-to ingredients
Peek into Nuit's fridge on any given day, and you'll likely find her staples of young green peppers, chillies, pickled garlic, miso, kimchi, Thai basil, and Szechuan peppers.

Favourite areas to shop
Nuit and her family reside in Toronto's east end, but she regularly makes the trek to Chinatown and Kensington Market for grocery shopping. “It feels like I’m back home when I go in those areas,” explains Nuit.

Favourite kid-friendly snack
“My kids love to eat cheese,” says Nuit. “When we don't have much time, a cheese board is healthy and very simple to put together. Of course, I'll usually add in some Asian flavour, like dried mango or coconut on the side.”

Favourite tools of the trade
Nuit has five mortars and pestles for crushing herbs and making pastes, including a 30+-year-old set passed down from her mother.