Phila Lorn taps Cambodian heritage for inspiring BYOB debut at Mawn

Phila Lorn is as Philadelphian as it gets. He was born at Jefferson Hospital and grew up at Seventh and Jackson. He’s cooked in this town for nearly the entirety of his adult life, albeit always behind the scenes — until now. And yes, his first name is also a badge of city pride.

“It’s pronounced ‘Peela,’ which is my mother’s broken English for ‘Philadelphia,’ ” he says of the name his parents chose as a gesture of gratitude for the city where they took refuge in 1985 to rebuild their lives. Phila was born here the following year.

You can hear the swagger of South Philly salt in Phila’s voice as he circulates through the jam-packed tables at Mawn. He greets guests who are happily nibbling lemongrass beef skewers, chile-flared soft-shell shrimp, and night market noodles, regaling them with sometimes harrowing tales of the struggles it took for him, his family, and his wife, Rachel Lorn, to finally arrive at this moment of opening their own place. It’s a tableside conversation that quickly travels back a generation and across the globe to Cambodia, where his parents escaped the bloody Khmer Rouge regime, but not before losing close relatives to murder.

“Excuse my language, but it’s the truth ...,” Phila says.

But if ever a restaurant represented a generational leap in the pursuit of freedom, it is Mawn. The name means chicken in Khmer, Phila says, “and they only ate chicken when there was no gunfire or bombs. Chicken represents peace time.”

That explains the feisty green feathered jungle rooster portrait that hangs in the dining room Rachel and Phila have taken over from the old Kalaya. And chicken is more than a symbol at Mawn. It’s at the heart of some of the menu’s most delicious dishes, from the crisp, batter-free fried bird glazed in fish sauce caramel and Thai basil, to the crispy crackers of fried chicken skin served with house-fermented green chile hull sauce.

All the rendered schmaltz from that chicken skin is part of the reason why Mawn’s chicken noodle soup, while infused with the Southeast Asian aromatics of ginger, scallion, and daikon, tastes like a mash-up of pho ga and the broth of a good matzo ball soup. It’s also steeped with the bubbe’s secret of parsnip roots. “It starts off Jewish, ends up Asian,” says Phila, noting the influence of Rachel’s Jewish family roots. (The fried chicken skin is an indulgent nod to gribenes.)

Rachel, the epitome of practiced grace as she cheerfully touches tables, is also a restaurant lifer. An East Falls native, she helped open Pod, worked for Zama (where she met Phila), and is now at the Logan Hotel, where she’s the director of banquets. Phila worked for a dozen years, learning Japanese cuisine at Zama and CoZara, along with time at 1225 Raw, Will BYOB, Stock, and Mighty Bread Co.

He is quick to note that Mawn is not a Cambodian restaurant, per se, despite the many kreung-laced meats and punchy prohok sauces that electrify some of its best offerings.

“We have no rules, we do what we want and we own our own time,” he says, explaining why their BYOB is only open four days a week for dinner until 9 p.m. (They also have an 18-month-old son named Otis). The approach also explains why the menu gleans from a multitude of Asian influences, from Burma to Laos, Vietnam, Japan, and Thailand. A few staff holdovers from the original Kalaya (since moved to Fishtown) have contributed, including a Thai crab fried rice rich with crustacean fat that is flat-out delicious.

But, as Phila says, though he was born here, “the Cambodian genocide literally shaped who I am now.” And Mawn’s most inspiring dishes unapologetically tap the flavors that helped reshape that community in diaspora, as it worked its way up abroad from often difficult economic circumstances: “A lot of Khmer food to me is survival food,” he says.

Growing up with limited resources while his parents both worked long hours in factories, dinners were often as simple as soy sauce, rice, and chicken. Phila’s exposure to Cambodian flavors was shaped by the smoky grills and pounded papaya salads of the Southeast Asian market at FDR Park, as well as his mother’s cooking. “Authentic Cambodian food to me is what my mom made from her memories with what we had: lime leaves, lemongrass, and prahok.”

You can taste the pride in those memories in dishes like the banh chow salad, savory coconut milk-turmeric crepes, not unlike crispy Vietnamese banh xeo, but cradled wet in a bowl already dressed with fish sauce beneath a flavorful pile of herbs, sprouts, chicken, and shrimp. Crunchy papaya salad is a direct nod to those childhood weekend picnics in FDR Park, while the sot koh offers his twist on grilled beef, his signature kreung spice blend marinating the meat with both galangal and guajillo chiles.

Prohok, an essential Cambodian ingredient of fermented mudfish paste, is mixed with red chiles, coconut milk, and warm ground pork, then served as a dip with cabbage wedges for a satisfying Cambodian crudité. Prohok gets transformed into a “Cambodian chimichurri” with tomatoes, shallots, and vinegar for a zesty, herb-blasted companion to the sliced pile of grilled prime ribeye that is one of the restaurant’s most electric large sharing dishes.

Also not to be missed: a cast-iron-seared daurade topped with hot sesame oil and herbs that’s now one of my favorite whole fish in town. Some grilled fresh sardines Mawn ran as a special were considerably smaller but no less flavorful, served alongside a simple but potent classic dip of lime juice, pepper, and salt.

The daurade, which borrows a Japanese technique, is one of several dishes inspired by Phila’s varied culinary journey. The crispy Japanese soft-shell shrimp with fish sauce caramel and Thai chiles is a legacy of his time at CoZara. The Burmese ginger and bitter melon salad, as well as the night market noodles with ground boar, with an assist from the crunchy ramen noodles made for him by his friends at Neighborhood Ramen, were inspired by his time at Stock.

Ironically, despite billing itself as a noodle house and placing a special station in the dining room to assemble those dishes, I found the noodle options to be the least distinctive corner of this menu, satisfying enough but not particularly memorable. Phila’s duo of dessert options, though, were a hard miss. His nostalgic salute to the funnel cakes of his Oregon Avenue youth arrived soggy, and as for the rice pudding, even Phila conceded, “sometimes it sucks ... I’m not a pastry chef.”

Blunt honesty and self-awareness are among Phila’s most endearing traits. But most of the food here is also a thrill to eat, full of vivid, soulful flavors that add up to one of the most exciting openings in 2023. That’s why I have no doubt this promising new restaurant will continue to grow, evolve, and refine its voice. It has already proven to be well worth the struggle.

764 S. Ninth St, Philadelphia; mawnphilly.com. No active phone. Best method for prompt contact is direct message on Instagram.

Dinner Wednesday through Saturday, 4:30 to 9 p.m.

Noodles and large plates, $18-$49.

Wheelchair accessible through backyard entrance.

About 70% of menu is gluten-free or can be modified.