I spent four days eating through Rosewood Phnom Penh’s five restaurants—Zhan Liang, Cuts, Iza, Sora and Brasserie Louis. Here’s how the dining programme came together.

Phnom Penh, a city that spent decades rebuilding its cultural identity after the Khmer Rouge, is now producing food and drink with a conviction and ambition that is beginning to attract serious attention on its own terms and at its own pace.

At the top of that conversation sits Rosewood Phnom Penh. Occupying the upper floors of the Vattanac Capital Tower—a gilded high-rise conceived in the form of a dragon watching over the confluence of the Tonle Sap and the Mekong—the hotel houses five distinct dining and bar venues open to guests and non-guests alike. Cuts is among the premier grill restaurants in the city. Zhan Liang is its finest Chinese. Sora is the most talked-about bar in Phnom Penh, full stop.

I came as a guest for the second Phnom Penh Cocktail Festival in early February, and spent four days eating my way through all of it. What I didn’t expect was how deeply the dining programme—lead by Director of Culinary Chef Jan Vandyk— would reflect the city itself.

Zhan Liang: A Journey Across China

Zhan Liang is Rosewood Phnom Penh’s pan-Chinese restaurant, spanning Cantonese, Sichuanese and Northern Chinese styles in one of the most extensive menus of its kind. Chef de Cuisine Teng Kam Seng—a Malaysian Chinese chef with over 25 years of Cantonese experience—helms a menu that traverses China without losing its footing. As a fellow Malaysian, finding one of our own behind one of the most accomplished Chinese kitchens in the region was quietly gratifying. We were seated in the VIP private dining room around a table for twenty, a motorised lazy susan turning slowly at its centre.

Cold appetisers were extremely moreish: marinated cherry tomatoes with sour plum and sweet vinegar that I repeatedly reached out for; fresh cucumber with premium soy sauce and a satisfying crunch; and most notably, chilled free-range chicken with chili and peanut sauce—the best kou shui ji I have had with spicy, numbing flavours that demanded a second bite.

Every confident Chinese kitchen prides itself on nourishing soups with prized ingredients. The double-boiled morel and bamboo pith soup with matsutake mushrooms arrived as restorative luxury mid-meal. The steamed tiger grouper, served whole as tradition demands, was firm and beautifully sauced. The mapo tofu with minced wagyu had ambition but arrived milder than the chilled chicken had set the bar for—had it retained the personality of its predecessor, it would undoubtedly be a star dish.

Zhan Liang — Menus | Reservations

Cuts: Sustainability on the Plate

Cuts occupies Level 38 with floor-to-ceiling city views, a kitchen philosophy built around whole-animal butchery and the hotel’s own hydroponic garden, and a wine programme of serious depth. By the window, a bronze sculpture composed entirely of the Cambodian alphabet watched over our dining party. Cuts is also home to a Wine Vault with over 3,000 bottles of exquisite and some very rare labels.

The bread service arrived first: freshly baked loaves with house-made salted butter in handcrafted wooden boxes. I helped myself to considerably more than was reasonable and have no regrets. A steak tartare pai tee offered a clean opening bite before the truffle mushroom soup poured tableside over mushroom jam—earthy, savoury, lighter than its rich visuals suggested. I deeply enjoyed the garlic butter roasted shrimp with fermented lemon purée and green oil: extraordinarily fresh, a firm resistance to the knife, and a bright acidic pop that made the whole thing sing.

The butcher’s steak followed with its medium rare, deep blush interior revealed in the slicing, Kampot pepper sauce adding depth and a distinct nod to the city outside. A coconut cheesecake with mango passionfruit sorbet concluded generously, the sorbet doing the necessary work of pulling the richness back into balance.

Cuts — Menus | Reservations

Iza: Japanese without Pretension

Iza is the hotel’s Japanese izakaya on Level 37, moving between a robata grill, sushi counter and noodle corner—led by Chef de Cuisine Teerapat “Tee” Kaewhirom, a Thai chef whose passion for Japanese cuisine is evident in every plate.

There are particular pleasures dining at a restaurant that handles technique and provenance well. Japanese cuisine is the ideal stage for such a performance. An evening at Iza showcased great seafood in different preparations ranging from raw fish, fried tempura, charcoal grill, and a clean soup.

The tuna tataki with garlic chips and yuzu ponzu: silky, medium-fatty, melting cleanly; hata tempura—grouper in a batter enriched with almond flakes—was the evening’s most technically interesting moment, adding a rustic crunch I had not encountered in tempura before. Sushi and sashimi moriawase was fresh and well-sourced, the kohada nigiri and hokkigai sashimi were the most memorable. An interlude with hotate dashi broth and a generous salmon fillet glazed with teriyaki sauce completed the meal. The meal closed with a strawberry daifuku and red bean monaka.

Iza — Menus | Reservations

Sora: The Bar That Found Its Address

Contiguous with Iza, a cantilevered outdoor sky deck is where Phnom Penh’s most talked about bar looks over the city skyline. Sora was ranked 65th on Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025 and received the Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award the same year—the first Cambodian bar on either list. I visited during a preview of its new menu, Build & Sip, led by Director of Bar Jonas Vittur, before the Phnom Penh Cocktail Festival kicked off across two nights.

Build & Sip begins with the architecture of a classic cocktail, then reworks it through locally sourced Cambodian ingredients and a visual language of studded ice, custom-engineered glassware and 3D-printed vessels—playful without being frivolous. The Khmer Colada—white rum, pineapple, coconut, Cambodian curry, sansho pepper and chili—was a confident opening statement. The Cherry Lady Punch, blending cashew nut whiskey, spiced rum, sakura tea and cherry syrup with a dark chocolate garnish, rewarded a second glass.

What defines Build & Sip most precisely is what it inverted. The previous menu, Alchemy of Anime, was Japanese in concept with Khmer inflection. This one reverses the identity entirely: Cambodian flavours in the foreground, Japanese technique in the structure. A bar that has found its address—and decided, this time, to lead with it in stunning mixology craft.

Walk-ins welcome, though the sky deck fills quickly at golden hour. For Sora and the Phnom Penh Cocktail Festival in depth, read our dedicated feature here.

Sora — Menus | Reservations

Brasserie Louis: Morning Ritual & Sunday Brunch

Brasserie Louis is the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant on Level 35, serving breakfast daily, à la carte through the day, and hosting the property’s Sunday Brunch—overseen by Executive Sous-Chef Cristia Nou Picart, whose kitchen blends French technique with Cambodian recipes with a lightness of touch that reveals itself most clearly at the breakfast table.

Breakfast

Breakfast is served east-facing, with direct sunrise over the Mekong—a view compelling enough that I set my alarm for six every morning despite evenings that routinely ended well past midnight. Worth it, every single time.

The buffet is abundant without being indiscriminate: think charcuterie, cured cobia fish with crème fraîche, artisanal cheeses, freshly baked pastries alongside fine butter. For a traveller whose hotel breakfast experience has been shaped almost entirely by Malaysia’s halal hospitality landscape, a full pork programme was a reminder each morning that I was somewhere genuinely elsewhere.

The live egg station produced the best scrambled eggs I have had at any hotel breakfast: slightly runny, intensely creamy, barely holding together. Returned to every morning without apology. From the à la carte menu, the Kuy Teav Sach Kor—a Cambodian rice noodle soup with pork broth, sliced beef and fried garlic—was a comforting sip after cocktail festival shenanigans. Followed by a Morning Boost tea blend by La Plantation: turmeric, ginger petal and moringa—all locally sourced.

Sunday Brunch

One last hurrah before departing Phnom Penh saw Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve poured freely alongside a cocktail station turning out espresso martinis, bellinis and mimosas. A fresh seafood counter laden with ultra-fresh prawns, crab, scallops and clams shucked to order, and some of the finest oysters of the trip—ever so slightly elevated with a spoonful of caviar and a sip of bubbles.

The live carvery answered with roast lamb, beef, and a porchetta of extraordinary execution—juicy, unctuous, crackling that shattered at the knife, mustard sauce its ideal companion. Executive Pastry Chef Sonara Sieng’s dessert spread impressed with chocolate hazelnut cake, mango tart, technically accomplished canelés, and a crème brûlée that impressed even the French.

Sunday Brunch naturally functioned as a portrait of the entire dining programme at Rosewood Phnom Penh, a perfect culmination at the end of a weekend indulgence. The seafood freshness standard echoed across every outlet. The roast meats carried Cuts’ whole-animal conviction. The dim sum and sushi nodded quietly to Zhan Liang and Iza. Everything the hotel’s kitchens know about this city, arranged on a single floor, on a quiet Sunday, with champagne.

Brasserie Louis — Menus | Reservations

Rosewood Phnom Penh’s dining programme is best experienced as part of a stay at the hotel. Read our full hotel review here for the complete picture.

Rosewood Phnom Penh Review: Ultra-Luxury at the Heart of Cambodia

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