# 1910 | Origin
layout: solo
title: 普通 — "ordinary"
body: POTONG (普通) means "ordinary." Around 1910 Chef Pam's family raised this Sino-Portuguese shophouse in Chinatown and made Chinese medicine on the ground floor. Four generations would live and work here for more than a century.
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# 2018 | Coming home
layout: diamond
title: The building returns to the family
body: Reclaiming the building meant first recovering what it had left behind. Over many months the family gathered the artifacts scattered through its rooms — and, among them, a complete set of drawings by K. Vichai, the elder brother of Chef Pam's grandfather. Piece by piece, the building's memory was brought back together before any renovation could begin.
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# 2019 | Designing
title: A year of listening before touching
body: 2019 was given over to design — and to juxtaposition, the idea at the heart of POTONG. Old set beside new, East beside West, the building's century-old bones beside Chef Pam's contemporary vision. Before a single wall was touched, the team decided what to keep and what to reimagine, so the two could stand as one.
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# 2020 | Construction
title: Built by hand, through a narrow shaft
body: To construct POTONG's restaurant was not one of the straightforward assignments. We accumulated and gathered groups of specialists including engineers, interior designers, artists, craftsmen, kitchen specialists, and numerous others in order to ensure that the originality of the building would be maintained whilst at the same time pursuing today's vision of POTONG. More than 70 individuals were present in this space of 500 sqm. during the development.
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# 2021 | Opening
title: The doors finally open
body: The restaurant was finished, but Thailand's third-wave lockdown (20 July – 31 August 2021) kept the doors shut. POTONG opened that September, welcomed by guests who had booked three to four months ahead to try the food. Our guests praise for our duck — and with it, a new era of progressive Thai-Chinese cuisine began.
awards:
POTONG: "World's Best New Restaurant" Hot List — Condé Nast Traveller
POTONG: Best Chinese Restaurant — Prestige
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# 2022 | The Golden Tiger
title: A Year of the Golden Tiger
body: By 2022 the building was fully alive — and so was its street. Along Vanich 1 and Songwat, the old shophouse quarter was beginning to boom, and POTONG became part of building that community. Chef Pam and her husband both sit on the Songwat committee, helping shape a stronger society around them.
awards:
POTONG: One Michelin Star — Michelin Guide
POTONG: Opening of the Year — MICHELIN Thailand
POTONG: Best New Restaurant — Time Out
POTONG: Best Heritage Restaurant & Bar Design Award — Restaurant & Bar Design Awards
POTONG: Top 30 Restaurants — KOKTAIL Magazine
POTONG: Rising Star — TOP25 Restaurants
POTONG: Restaurant & Bar of the Year — Chope
Chef Pam: 40 Under 40 — Prestige
Chef Pam: Chef of the Year — KOKTAIL Magazine
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# 2023 | The world's lists
title: A debut on Asia's and the World's 50 Best
body: In 2023 POTONG's name appeared for the first time on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants and, soon after, the World's 50 Best — the lists that chart the kitchens the world is talking about. A first entry, from a restaurant only two years open.
awards:
POTONG: #35 Asia's 50 Best Restaurants — Asia's 50 Best Restaurants
POTONG: #88 World's 50 Best Restaurants — World's 50 Best Restaurants
POTONG: #5 — TOP25 Restaurants
POTONG: Best Innovative Restaurant — International Dining Awards
POTONG: Restaurant of the Year — KOKTAIL Magazine
POTONG: Thailand's Best — Thailand Favourite Restaurants
POTONG: Top 100 of the World — Luxury Lifestyle Award
POTONG: Top 10 Most Recommended, Thailand — Word of Mouth
POTONG: Platinum Medal — CTRIP Gourmet
Chef Pam: Chef of the Year — Chope Diner Choices
Chef Pam: Woman Foodpreneur — Inspiring Women in Travel Asia
Chef Pam: #95 Best Chef — World's Best Chef Award
Chef Pam: Asia's Most Influential — Tatler Asia
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# 2024 | Female Movement
title: Asia's Best Female Chef
body: Chef Pam was named Asia's Best Female Chef. The same year she founded the Women for Women (WFW) scholarship — funding full culinary training for young Thai women from the provinces who could not otherwise afford it, opening the kitchen to a new generation of chefs.
awards:
POTONG: #17 Asia's 50 Best Restaurants — Asia's 50 Best Restaurants
POTONG: #57 World's 50 Best Restaurants — World's 50 Best Restaurants
POTONG: #1 in Bangkok — TOP25 Restaurants
Chef Pam: Asia's Best Female Chef — Asia's 50 Best Restaurants
Chef Pam: 3 Knives — highest status — World's Best Chef Award
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# 2025 | World’s Stage
title: The World's Best Female Chef
body: In 2025 Chef Pam became the World's Best Female Chef — the first Asian chef ever to receive it — as POTONG entered the World's 50 Best at number thirteen, the highest new entry of the year.
awards:
POTONG: #13 Asia's 50 Best Restaurants — Highest New Entry — Asia's 50 Best Restaurants
Chef Pam: The World's Best Female Chef — World's 50 Best Restaurants
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# 2026 | Next era
layout: solo
title: The biggest renovation yet
body: A new chapter, within the same old walls. From May to mid-June 2026 POTONG closes for its most ambitious renovation yet — fewer seats, more room to breathe, the kitchen and cellar remade around the people who fill them. A building that has carried a family for over a century, readied for the years to come.
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