Hōp at Runner Up is located at 367 Seventh Avenue, entrance on 11th Street, and is currently open for dinner on Wednesday through Sunday from 5:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., and for lunch of Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. The Red Hook location, opening sometime this summer, will be on Van Brunt Street next door to 360 Record Shop.
Red Hook Tavern executive chef Bun Cheam was just kicking it after service following one of his periodic “Chinese food nights” at the perpetually packed Van Brunt Street restaurant when Tavern boss Bill Durney put it plainly to him. “What’s your dream? What do you want to do?” Cheam recalled Durney asking him. And when Cheam replied, “I want to open a Cambodian restaurant,” Durney was instantly onboard. “All right, let’s do it.” Simple as that.
With Durney’s backing, sometime this summer Red Hook will get Hōp, a bold, unapologetically Khmer restaurant coming to Van Brunt Street from Cheam and his partner Cait Callahan that I predict will easily be one of Brooklyn’s best new restaurants of the year.
Why am I so confident Hōp is going to be so good? Because last week my friend Molly and I feasted at Cheam and Callahan’s preview in Park Slope, which is now about four months into its residency at Runner Up and, despite kitchen limitations (no gas, tiny space), was one of the most exciting, deeply pleasurable meals I’ve had in ages.
Prohok-ktiss, or “funky pork dip,” $20 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
We ate about half of Cheam’s current, frequently-changing menu the other night, and every dish was a big winner. The prohok-ktuss, or what he calls the “funky pork dip,” had me swooning, knocking back spoonfuls of the oily, heavily-seasoned ground meat plopped on top of jasmine rice and filling the crisp lettuce leaves laid out on the side.
Ku thiel Phnom Penh, $24 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
The ku thiel Phnom Penh is a phenomenal soup, thick with rice noodles, slabs of tender pork, snappy shrimps, a jammy quail egg, a mess of bean sprouts, and tons of garlic. Dump in the chili paste for a serious kick. Cheam told us this is a staple in its namesake city—it’s basically all of the Cambodian capital’s comfort foods thrown together—but, like most Khmer dishes, rare to find in New York City.
Braised mustard greens with shiitake and rice, $20 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
Beef skewers with fish sauce caramel $20 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
The bowl of braised mustard greens sounds like a possible skip, but it turned out to be our favorite dish of the night—meltingly soft veggies sexed up with generous chunks of shiitake and an incredible ginger broth we shamelessly gulped down to the last drop. The beef skewers delivered on their fatty, sticky, fish-sauce promise, and even after wolfing all of the above, we somehow made room for (most of) Cheam’s spectacular, boldly-seasoned, kruen-roasted chicken, the leftovers of which were just as good the next day for lunch.
Coconut and pandan gelato with cocktail peanuts, $12 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
Dessert comes courtesy of Dolce Brooklyn gelato in Carroll Gardens—the proprietary pandan flavor was particularly perfect—which Cheam drizzles with dulce de leche and sprinkles with a classic Khmer peanut mix that Callahan told us gets served at every bar in Cambodia.
Callahan is a veteran beverage director, and her lists at Hōp include $19 cocktails punched up with Southeast Asian flavors, $12 shots of various amaros, several beers, a selection of non-alcoholic options, and a bunch of different wines, available by the glass or bottle. Look for the drink options (and the food menu) to expand when the couple opens in Red Hook.
For Cheam, who grew up with this food (his personal journey is a winding one, going from Phnom Penh, to a refugee camp in Thailand, to Harrisburg, PA, to, as of now, Windsor Terrace with Callahan), Hōp represents an chance to honor and celebrate his family while clueing the rest of us into the glories of Khmer cuisine. “It feels really great to finally be able to add to the food conversation in NYC,” he said. “You have so much Southeast Asian food represented here–Thai, Vietnamese–but almost no real Khmer food. So I’m very, very happy we’re able to add to that. I want Khmer food to be added to the people’s rotation. Like, I want them to say, ‘I could go for some Cambodian tonight.’”
(Photo by Scott Lynch)
The Runner Up space fits 12 people comfortably, up to 16 if necessary, and Callahan and Cheam do pretty much everything here, including making the mix of ’90s crowd-pleasers and (slightly) deeper cuts that plays at a pleasantly loud volume. Plus, there are like 70 lucky cats tucked in everywhere? It all makes for an exceptionally fun night out. Hōp, by the way, is pronounced like “hope,” and is one of nine ways to say “to eat” in Khmer. Come prepared. I can’t wait to see what they do on Van Brunt.
Callahan told us they’d be in Park Slope for another month or two before diving into construction full-time on their brick and mortar, so you can either catch them here at Runner Up or wait until they open in Red Hook, or—best idea—do both of those things.
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