How the chef at Anajak Thai in LA left his Disney animation job to help out at the family restaurant, and made it one of the city’s most popular
- Justin Pichetrungsi was a Disney animator before moving to his family’s Anajak Thai restaurant in Los Angeles to help out after his father had a stroke
- He recently won a James Beard Award for California’s best chef and Anajak is now one of the Californian city’s buzziest eateries
Justin Pichetrungsi is quickly becoming one of America’s most exciting chefs.
It’s not the path he set out on, though – he used to lead the animation team for some of Disney’s biggest franchises, then craft dishes for his family’s restaurant at night.
But since taking over Anajak Thai in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, in 2019, Pichetrungsi has moulded the 43-year-old venue into an award-winning eatery praised by some of America’s most prominent food critics.
Pichetrungsi recently discovered that his mother took him to Anajak Thai soon after he was born; he’s worked there in some capacity for most of his life.
“I was always busing and waiting tables, I was cooking with my dad during summers,” Pichetrungsi said. “And that’s how I got to understand the way that my dad did things, the way that my dad cooked.”
