Where to Eat in Kampot: Best Breakfast, Restaurants, and Street Food

If Cambodians have a main meal of the day, it’s breakfast. Grabbing soup, rice porridge, or a simple pork and rice in the market is one of the most authentic, and cheapest, meals you’ll find.

Samaki Market is Kampot’s main market, with all the chaos and crowds that go with it. Mixed in with the clothing shops, goldsmiths, hardware stalls, and more, you’ll find the food stalls serving all the classics in the morning. It’s busy, mostly Khmer-speaking, and you’ll have to squeeze onto a bench. Breakfasts are usually about a dollar:

• Bye Sack Cheruk: pork and rice

• Baw-Baw: rice porridge with chicken

• Baw-Baw-Saw: rice porridge with salted fish

• Kuy Tiew: noodle soup

• Bye Chah: fried rice

  

Tara is a few minutes out of town, near Cafe Espresso. It’s easy to spot: there’s a whole cow roasting on the street corner.

It’s a popular spot with Cambodians, but can be a bit daunting at first. Sit down at a table, flag down a waiter, and order beef by weight. A half-kilo is generally enough for two. The beef comes out cut into small pieces, with vegetables and an assortment of condiments and dipping sauces. Mix the sauces and condiments to taste, wrap up a piece of beef in the cabbage with a few other vegetables and herbs, dip in the sauce, and enjoy.

The beer is self-serve. Take what you want from the table of cold cans and pay for the empties at the end.

Kampot is famous for seafood. While western tourists go to Kep for crab, the Khmer tourists come here.

While they don’t offer whole crab, they have a large selection of seafood, including oysters and prawns. Order them alongside squid, mussels, crab fried rice, and more. Much of the menu is cook-it-yourself: a small gas cooker comes to the table with butter, seafood and veg. The patio can get busy, and service can be a bit slow, but the food is worth it.

If you want Cambodian food in a more familiar restaurant setting, give 1960 a try. Chef Darin came from Phnom Penh and went back through old Cambodian cookbooks to bring back dishes that most restaurants stopped serving. The fish amok is among the best in town.

The name comes from the 1960s Cambodian pop music playing through the room. The menu has all your Khmer classics, and for the more adventurous, red ants and tarantula are also available.

Ask any expat for the best restaurant in Kampot and Twenty-Three will be on the list. It’s European fine dining, but at Kampot prices. Back home, a meal like this would only be for special occasions. The menu is small and changes seasonally. The twice-baked cheddar soufflé and hand-rolled pasta are amazing. The slow-cooked lamb shank is a personal favorite.

It’s best to book ahead in high season. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

At first glance, Bob Marley’s looks like every other Cambodian-Western fusion restaurant in Kampot. Locals know it as one of the best Khmer-BBQ places in town. The beef kebab, pork ribs, and roast chicken are local favorites.

The menu is extensive and the portions are generous.

Word has been getting around about Trattoria da Rasy. This unassuming little street stall down a side street off the Salt Workers roundabout is making some of the best pasta in town. No frills, no flash, just some of the best handmade pasta in Kampot. Even Italians have been known to say it’s pretty good, which is about as high as praise gets.

Tortellini, ravioli, gnocchi, and other pasta dishes are made by hand in front of you and served with her homemade sauces. In the same space, Mama’s Chicken does some of the best roast chicken in Kampot.