“We are deeply passionate about Cambodia’s culinary heritage and using the country’s fresh produce and ingredients. Chef and owner Pola Siv has a kitchen garden where he grows organic herbs. ‘My dream is to have my own farm where I can grow enough to supply the restaurant’, he explains. At Mie Cafe, we work with local small-scale producers, which means we select quality produce from trusted sources. All of our seafood is sustainably caught.”

Snakehead fish salad with grapefruit, fresh aromatic local herbs, and crispy poached egg tempura; crab meat “soup” with green peas, coconut milk, and lemongrass; and rib eye beef with sautéed mushrooms and homemade demi-glazed green peppercorn sauce.

Siem Reap chef Pola Siv may apply the French techniques he learnt at Swiss culinary school and the Michelin-starred restaurant where he trained to Mie Cafe, but his exquisite Cambodian-European cuisine couldn’t be more local. The five-course gourmet tasting menus, including a vegan discovery menu, are continually adapted according to what is in season and available. Like most Cambodians (eighty per cent of the population still lives in rural areas) Pola forages for herbs, leaves, and edible flowers daily. A champion of small-scale producers, his hero supplier is seventy-year old Mrs Ho of Bakhong village, who provides Mie Cafe with Cambodia’s beloved prahok, fermented salted fish paste that she pounds from wild linecaught river fish.