Maenam : the restaurant that changed Thai food in Vancouver

In 2009, Angus An made the decision that would reshape his career. After opening Gastropod to critical acclaim and earning the title of best new fine dining restaurant, the 2008 recession forced him to rethink the model. He closed the restaurant for a few weeks, transformed the West 4th Avenue space, and reopened it as Maenam, a restaurant built around his own take on Thai cuisine. Seventeen years later, Maenam is recommended by the Michelin Guide, was named Vancouver Magazine’s Restaurant of the Year in 2016, and Angus was crowned Chef of the Year in 2025. “Learning Thai food might have been a happy accident, but it ultimately saved my career,” he sums up.

The path is worth telling. Born in Taiwan and raised in the Vancouver suburbs from the age of ten, Angus An trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York before spending three and a half years at Normand Laprise’s Toqué!, including two as saucier. He later moved to London, where he joined the kitchen of David Thompson, then the only chef to have earned a Michelin star for Thai cuisine. One lesson in particular stayed with him. After making a hot and sour soup he thought was far too spicy, An watched Thompson rebalance it with lime juice, tamarind, fish sauce and fried garlic, transforming the heat into something layered and harmonious. “That, in essence, is Thai cooking. You season with flavour, not just ingredients,” Angus took away from the experience, a philosophy that also reminded him of his mother’s cooking.

That lesson is what Maenam has applied since day one. The idea: give Thai cuisine the level of service and bar once reserved for fine dining, far from the glass tabletops and laminated menus of the era. The cooking is modern and elevated, rooted in local products yet uncompromising about what has to come from Thailand. Everything is made in-house, every curry paste and every sauce. 

As for the name, it flows from the water: maenam means “river” in Thai. In Buddhist belief, ever-flowing water is the strongest element, an omen of constancy that suits the house well. The 48-seat dining room keeps things intimate: modern, warm, built as much for a tête-à-tête as for group tables.

On the plate, the fast lane remains the chef’s menu, left entirely in the kitchen’s hands. Regulars, for their part, order the signature dishes ahead: the whole Dungeness black pepper crab, its truffle and scallion variation, or the lobster clay pot over chili-laced vermicelli. In the glass, the cocktail list follows the same logic as the kitchen: flavour-driven creations, including a signature built on the salty, sour and spicy profile of tom yum soup, the work of a Thai bar manager who knows his ingredients.

Maenam has also become the flagship of a small fleet: Longtail Kitchen in New Westminster since 2012, the two Fat Mao noodle counters, gold winners for casual restaurant of the year in 2025, Sen Pad Thai in the Granville Island Public Market, and Sainam, opened in 2025 on Davie Street. The chef also oversees the menu at Mekong in Whistler, and will be inducted into the BCRFA Hall of Fame in October 2026. To taste where it all began, West 4th Avenue is where it happens.

Written by Fabie Lubin
Photography by Maenam

Updated on October 14, 2026

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