The follow up to one of Philly's hottest restaurants is a Southeast Asian oyster bar called Sao

Phila and Rachel Lorn — whose acclaimed Cambodian BYOB Mawn in South Philadelphia is one of the hottest reservations in town — will add a restaurant next year about a mile away.

The ink is barely dry on a lease for Sao, a Southeast Asian oyster bar, on the East Passyunk strip. The Lorns are bringing in a cousin — Jesse Levinson, a former Vernick and Dandelion bartender and now real estate agent — as they set up Sao in the space that previously housed Ocho Rios Parilla and Plenty Cafe at 1710 E. Passyunk Ave.

Like Mawn, Sao will be small: 30 seats, including eight at the bar. This time, the couple will have a liquor license.

» READ MORE: Mawn is one of Craig LaBan's 10 best restaurants of 2024

“Sao” is Phila Lorn’s mother’s pronunciation of “South,” as in South Philadelphia. In 1986, his Cambodian parents named him Phila — pronounced “Peela” — to honor the city where they arrived after a church sponsored their immigration the year before. They had fled the Khmer Rouge.

Phila Lorn worked at Zama and CoZara, 1225 Raw, Will BYOB, Stock, and Mighty Bread Co. Rachel Lorn helped open Pod and worked for Zama, where she met Phila. She was, until last spring, director of banquets at the Logan Hotel. Mawn opened in 2023 at 764 S. Ninth St., in Kalaya’s former space.

Sao’s culinary inspiration is Phila Lorn’s 2008 trip to Cambodian beaches, where “I smelled and saw things that I really wanted to bottle up and sell.” Lorn said to expect various crudos as a signature. A current Mawn dish with littleneck clams cooked in Cambodian sour curry with basil oil, lime, and herbs will make its way to Sao.

For the look, they plan to channel Boston’s Neptune Oyster Bar.

Lorn is circumspect about the opening. It will happen, he said, “when I’m [good and] ready.”