When Alex and Yotaka “Sunny” Martin decided to embark on a mission to open their lauded Thai restaurant Lom Wong, their motivation was both selfish and altruistic.
The husband-and-wife team yearned to maintain their love and connection they had for their previous home of Thailand. Yet, they wanted to fully embrace their new digs in the desert. The best way they knew how to do that was through the cuisine — not just cooking it for themselves, but also for their fellow Phoenicians with whom they could share the stories behind each ingredient and every dish.
And in seeking an equilibrium between the tropical land they left and the arid city they arrived to, Lom Wong — which translates into “to sit together in a circle” — was born. "We started talking about the different themes that we wanted our concept to encompass,” Alex says. “It speaks to the warm feeling of different friends and family coming together to share delicious food and drink.”
Creating this connection between two very different places 8,500 miles apart is at the heart of Lom Wong, which has found a place in the heart of the nation’s fifth largest city by honoring the culture and cooking methods they learned while traveling and living in villages across Sunny’s homeland of Thailand.
“The way we built community in Phoenix was based on how the villages operate across Thailand — community over self,” says Alex, a Chicago native who lived in Thailand for more than a decade. “While we may be the creative impetus, our community around us is why we were able to build and execute this at the level we do.”
But this journey that began with private pop-up dinners in their backyard came with its share of speed bumps. Sunny hails from a village in northern Thailand where her family raised animals, grew rice and had farms with a variety of fruits and vegetables. They shared with other villagers what they did not eat. “I learned to cook with my family, and the flavors come from home,” Sunny says.
Alex spent more than 12 years in Thailand, during which he earned a master’s degree in Southeast Asian Studies, worked with local nonprofits and taught university courses that brought American students to live and study throughout the country. He also learned traditional ways to harvest ingredients and prepare dishes from people he met along the way.
“The way we built community in Phoenix was based on how the villages operate across Thailand — community over self. While we may be the creative impetus, our community around us is why we were able to build and execute this at the level we do.”
Despite the credibility they both brought to the table, the fact remained that they were self-taught cooks, unknowns in the Phoenix dining scene and rookies to the industry whose concept hinged on a cuisine that was popular but not fully understood. Due to their lack of a track record, landlords, realtors and investors wouldn’t give them the time of day.
While they waited for a brick-and-mortar space, hosting intimate reservation-only dinners at home was something they could control and allow them to share the love for Thailand. For Alex, some of the deepest connections he made in Thailand were in the kitchen, cooking with people who became like family. He knew that would work here.
“When we started doing pop-ups, we didn't have any professional experience in the food industry,” Alex says. “But what we did have was a desire to sincerely cook the recipes that we loved from our friends and families in Thailand.”
Then, destiny intervened. When a commercial property owner happened to be a guest at one of their pop-up dinners, they got their deserved break.
“We didn't know he was a landlord, but we always would tell anybody who would listen, ‘Hey, we're looking for space and if you know anything, we want to be in downtown Phoenix,’” Alex says. “Our landlord showed up to a dinner party and fell in love with our food.”
To Sit Together In A Circle
Three years after hosting their first backyard dinner, the Martins opened Lom Wong in downtown Phoenix in 2022.
They continued the same practices like using Thai produce growers in Arizona, pounding their own curry paste rather than scooping it from a can, and squeezing their own coconut milk by hand. This is a reflection of the cuisine, history and culture that they respect and offer diners with every bite, even for unique dishes that are found in unknown regions.
“What we do isn’t like other places. You may not have seen it before so it might not be the usual ‘comfort’ food,” Sunny says. “Another challenge is we don’t do the standard popular dishes here. We don’t have pad thai or green curry like people expect.”
Alex recalls, “When we opened up Lom Wong, a lot of people had a different expectation of what Thai food was. We were told that we weren't actually cooking Thai food … So we decided just to show another side of Thai cuisine that isn't more or less valuable. It's just the side that we love the most.”
However, that didn’t stop them. Their fearless persistence attracted a steadily growing line of hungry and curious patrons craving something new and excited to expand their boundaries. Sunny and Alex were able to make ingredients like fish sauce that may have been perceived as “weird” to Western palates more approachable and less scary.
“I think it was a right-place, right-time situation, where Phoenix was ready to just become weirder, I think, and a little bit more adventurous,” Alex says. “We’ve been very, very happy to be part of this supportive community of restaurants in downtown Phoenix where people are cooking what they want to cook, serving and doing experiences differently.”
Sunny and Alex’s spirit and passion to harmonize food and community was contagious and fit in with an evolving dining area that was becoming more comfortable with pushing conventional limits and eschewing compromise when it came to culinary expression.
"A lot of restaurateurs started wanting to bring personal meaning back into what they were cooking … They wanted Phoenix to become a city where restaurateurs didn't feel like they had to leave and go to California or Chicago,” Alex says. “And so we got a lot of support from local shops and restaurant tourists who connected to what we were doing.”
We’ve been very, very happy to be part of this supportive community of restaurants in downtown Phoenix where people are cooking what they want to cook, serving and doing experiences differently.”
Lom Wong’s story truly came full circle when Sunny captured the James Beard Award for Best Chef - Southwest. An accolade that serves as a nod to their efforts to build connection and community through cuisine.
“At the end of the day, the awards and all of that are very nice and flattering…” Alex says. “But one of our biggest goals is to continue to bridge the relationships between our community and Thailand with our community and Phoenix.”
Sunny adds, “The food and care we put in will speak for themselves.”
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