NATHAN UY, Executive Chef

Chef Nathan Uy came early to his love of cooking. He grew up in Kampot, Cambodia, a seaside village midway between the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. As a boy, he liked to watch his father, a businessman who loved to cook, prepare meals for his family of 11. Seafood was the mainstay of their diet, and father and son made daily trips to the market to buy live fish for the evening meal.

Nathan was a newly married man when the ruthless Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. He worked for four years as a cook for the Communist Committee, making meals for 200 villagers every day. In 1979 he and his wife escaped this cruel lifestyle by walking 120 miles through the jungles of Thailand to Vietnam.

For the past 10 years Nathan has been an integral part of the executive kitchen staff at Wild Ginger, first as sous chef and for the past 4 years, as head chef. Cambodian soups and seafood dishes are his specialties, but Nathan's expertise extends far beyond the borders of his home country. He is equally at ease with the cuisines of Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, China and Singapore, all of which are featured on the Wild Ginger menu.