GREENVILLE — Tony Ream-Hendley wants to use present-day food to talk about the past. In this way, his forthcoming restaurant, Restaurant Angkor, is the chance to talk about his family's history.
It's a history that includes surviving genocide in Cambodia, fleeing their home, becoming refugees and building a new life in a new country, all while trying to preserve their culture and identity.
When it opens this September, Restaurant Angkor will be a testament to Cambodian food traditions, culture and people. It will also be the only known Cambodian restaurant in South Carolina and at a minimum one of the few in the Southeast.
But there is more.
While the restaurant is at the heart of what Ream-Hendley is creating along with his husband, Bo, and his family, they are also working on a farming arm. It would focus on mostly Asian varietals of produce, ingredients that are hard to source outside of major cities, and it will supply the restaurant with fresh, local products.
Further plans include opening a grocery store and market to sell American and Asian goods in one place.
Red curry is a traditional Cambodian dish that is full of flavor and similar to Thai curry, but is generally less spicy and is characterized ingredients like turmeric, ginger and lemongrass.
It’s a lot to wrap his head around, he said, but in many ways, the 32-year-old has been developing plans for years, even if he didn’t quite realize it at the time.
To see it all coming to life now in a nearly 6,000-square-foot space in a shopping plaza off East North Street brings Ream-Hendley to an emotional state. Angkor is more than a restaurant. It's validation of the Cambodian experience.
“In conversation with my parents, I thought there is ample opportunity to do more than just a restaurant,” he said. “There is more to this business concept than just cooking a meal. It’s about providing a safe space.”
The only Cambodian restaurant in South Carolina
Ream-Hendley grew up in Lowell, Mass., which has one of the largest Cambodian populations in the United States.
Cambodian culture was vibrant: Cambodian restaurants where you could also see Cambodian musicians, temples where his family could practice their Buddhist faith, along with grocery, jewelry and fabric stores that carried Cambodian goods.
Ream-Hendley was 11 when his family decided to move south to Boiling Springs. While Spartanburg County has the largest number of Cambodians in the state, it was a much smaller community with far less representation.
It was "a huge culture shock,” he said.
It took some time, but the family acclimated well, adopting a love for hunting and fishing, embracing the chance to garden and cooking traditional Cambodian meals, but it became even more imperative to find ways to preserve their Cambodian identity.
The family joined a Buddhist temple, and on weekends they would travel to Atlanta or Charlotte to gather ingredients for the family’s meals.
Ream-Hendley latched onto the food. He remembers watching his grandmother prepare a seven or eight-course meal for the family, grinding spices, roasting peanuts, mixing sauces, and communicating love without a word.
Over the years, even as he built a career in corporate finance, he grew a deeper love of cooking. That interest in Cambodian food and history grew deeper during the COVID pandemic, when he was closed in at home.
He spent months reading and thinking.
“So, then it was how do I adhere to my identity as a Cambodian descendent living in the United States who loves every freedom we have here but still trying to hold to my roots and the culture?” he said.
Food is proof of life
Ream-Hendley had always heard about the Khmer Rouge regime, but he didn’t fully understand the scope of atrocities that occurred in Cambodia in the 1970s.
He knew his family had come to the U.S. to escape, but he didn’t know the details. His grandmother and mother never spoke about the trauma because it was all too painful.
But you can’t understand yourself without knowing your past, and so in his 20s, Ream-Hendley began reading and asking questions about the genocide that killed 2 million Cambodians.
His grandfather was one of them, killed in front of his family.
“I hear these stories and see where my mother and grandmother are today and am completely taken aback by that strength,” He said.
In 1980, with the help of the Red Cross, the family members were sponsored by a church In Houston. They were among nearly 150,000 Cambodians who were granted refugee status in the United States.
They moved to Lowell as part of a large migration of Cambodians in 1985.
Restaurant Angkor will feature a menu of traditional Cambodian dishes, which are characterized by fresh herbs, and spices like turmeric, lemongrass, galangal and ginger. Provided
“It’s the drive to bring representation to this story, because I think how many other Cambodian kids don’t know that story,” he said, fighting tears. “Most parents don’t talk about it.”
Angkor is neither a beginning nor an end, but a continuation of the Cambodian story. He is challenging the notion of remaining silent, replacing it instead with loud and intentional celebration.
A restaurant comes to life
The restaurant will be that celebration.
In the galangal and turmeric-infused curry lies a story of suffering and survival. In the umami-laden papaya salad is a story of passion, and in the house-made noodles is a history of love.
Not only will Restaurant Angkor be a place to get Amok and Khmer red curry, it will also be a place to experience Cambodian culture. Plans call for using the upstairs space to host events and to hold live music performances with Cambodian bands (there are three in the Upstate).
The hope is also to host markets that allow other local Asian-owned businesses to showcase their products and services.
His mother, grandmother and uncle will help direct food in the restaurant. His grandmother and other uncle will also oversee the farming side, which will eventually be its own entity.
The farming will start small with family-owned land but would grow as needed in the future to accommodate produce, chickens and maybe even ducks.
The ultimate goal is to provide products for other Asian restaurants and grocery stores in the area that now must rely solely on weekly deliveries from Atlanta, along with their own.
The restaurant’s food menu will include Cambodian classics, meaning dishes infused with seafood, inspired by the country’s positioning on the Mekong River, and rice and noodles infused with galangal, lemongrass and turmeric.
Plans call for making everything from scratch from the oyster sauce and hot sauces to the noodles.
Complementing the food will be a curated beverage program that pulls from Ream-Hendley’s love and knowledge of wine. Here, the offerings will stray from purely Cambodian brands, mostly because there aren’t really many wineries in Cambodian.
Restaurant Angkor will be located at 3795 E. North St., Greenville. The restaurant is slated to open in September. The space will feature a lounge area, Cambodian parties and other events.
For more, visit https://restaurantangkorgvl.com.
