Kalaya’s Spirit of Generosity

It’s 8:00 P.M. in Thailand when we reach James Beard Award winner® Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon, the chef/owner of Kalaya, a Southern Thai restaurant in Philadelphia. Suntaranon still can’t quite believe that Kalaya won the 2026 James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant presented by Acqua Panna® Natural Spring Water in Chicago just last month. But her chef de cuisine, Will Flemming, had just reassured her of that fact earlier in the day while market shopping in Pattani, where Flemming spent the better part of an afternoon selecting gifts for each staff member.

This spirit of generosity defines Kalaya—from its workplace culture to its hospitality ethos to the dining experience—and is what, for Suntaranon, elevates a great restaurant to an outstanding one. To be considered for the James Beard Awards’ Outstanding Restaurant category, a restaurant must have been in business for at least five years and demonstrate consistent excellence in food, atmosphere, hospitality, and operations. At Kalaya, which opened in 2019, it’s clear that upholding generosity as a core value has helped Suntaranon and her team exemplify these criteria. “The happiness has to come from within the organization first, before we share that with our guests,” she says. “The minute we open the door, we know that whoever is coming into our home, they'll be well taken care of. Because our team has been well taken care of.”

Part of the secret sauce to exceeding diner expectations at Kalaya is creating conversations. That takes the form of authentic storytelling around the deeply personal menu, whether servers are sharing snippets from Suntaranon’s childhood or anecdotes about particular dishes, like gai yaang naa por, a charcoal-grilled chicken dish fashioned after a recipe from a village in Suntaranon’s hometown, or gaeng pae, a goat and lamb curry that pays homage to her father.

When chef Suntaranon stops by the table, she not only asks how diners are enjoying their meal; she surveys the plates to see if they’ve left anything untouched. “We check on you because we're really curious,” she says. “We care about your experience, because our food is very different.” Taking a page out of her mother’s hospitality playbook, she’s been known to send out an extra dish for diners to try or take a dish off their bill if they didn’t enjoy it.

This generosity of time and sincerity is something that Suntaranon extends to her team, too, which helps foster a positive restaurant culture. “There is no complaint too small at Kalaya. That means when they bring something up, we get to it immediately. And I talk to my team every day,” she says. This feedback loop is especially important as Kalaya continues building a strong team by promoting from within and creating career pathways at the restaurant. In the last year, Suntaranon says they’ve only hired two new servers externally—the rest have been promoted from the runner team through training and individual coaching. This hands-on approach applies to the back-of-the-house staff, too. “We train people who have zero skill, and now their bird dumplings are more beautiful than my bird dumplings,” Suntaranon says, who also personally trains cooks on the wok and curry stations.