This week on Joiners, we sit down with Chanita Chayaluk, chef and owner of TAAN, a new and exciting Thai restaurant in Humboldt Park.
Chanita came to restaurants by way of a totally different career: she was working in education and mental health when the pandemic prompted a kind of “now or never” moment. She relocated to Bangkok, enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu’s Thai cuisine program, and followed a path that had been there all along -- her mom is a longtime Thai chef who worked at Chicago spots including Sticky Rice and Andy’s Thai Kitchen. Now at TAAN, Chanita is doing things a little differently, pairing Thai dishes and techniques with Midwestern ingredients, seasonal produce, and her own creative point of view.
We talk about learning Thai food beyond the dishes she grew up with, why she bristles at the word “authentic,” cooking with Midwestern ingredients, and why being “Type C” might be a restaurant superpower, and as always, so much more.
Listen to this episode