Phila Lorn’s limited-time collaboration with Home Appétit brings the flavors of the celebrated Cambodian restaurant to your door and supports his former South Philly school.
Phila and Rachel Lorn at Mawn / Photography courtesy of Home Appétit
If you’re among the many diners who have yet to land a reservation at Mawn, there’s another way to taste chef Phila Lorn’s lauded Southeast Asian cooking — for a few days, at least.
Home Appétit, the Philadelphia-based meal delivery service, is partnering with the chef on a limited-time menu inspired by his “Cambodian noodle house with no rules” and the food he grew up eating.
The collaboration is part of Home Appétit’s Chef Charity Collab program, in which they work with notable local chefs to add signature dishes to their menu for a week, with a portion of sales benefiting a local cause the chef chooses. For Lorn, who also co-owns Sao with his wife, Rachel, the menu features Mawn nyawm salad and Sunday chicken curry with an Italian Market baguette — two dishes that reflect his Cambodian roots and South Philly upbringing.
The nyawm salad, available on Mawn’s lunch menu, is a dish Lorn grew up eating at Cambodian gatherings. “It’s ceremonial,” he says. “At temples they have it. At funerals, at birthdays, it’s always in existence.” The Home Appétit version is a mix of green papaya, carrots, and herbs, including mint, Thai basil, cilantro, and rau ram (Vietnamese coriander). The accompanying dressing is made with fish sauce and palm sugar syrup.
The adaptation also swaps Mawn’s house-pickled chilies for the pickled cherry peppers — the kind typically found tucked into cheesesteaks and hoagies. The idea is to bring a little of that familiar South Philly flavor to the Cambodian dish. “You’ll taste the nostalgia of eating a cheesesteak,” Lorn says. “I’m making it ultra-homey.”
Mawn’s chicken curry via Home Appétit
The Sunday chicken curry, meanwhile, was a staple in Lorn’s childhood home. His parents, Cambodian immigrants who worked picking berries, had one day off each week, when his mother would make chicken curry and send his father to a neighborhood bakery like Sarcone’s for bread. “We would just hand tear it and dip it, dunk it into the curry,” the chef says.
The limited menu features a braised chicken leg in coconut curry with potatoes and long beans, paired with a Sarcone’s baguette for soaking up the sauce. The curry isn’t on Mawn’s regular menu, so even diners who have scored a table will get a taste of something different, along with a glimpse of the family meals that shaped Lorn’s cooking.
For Home Appétit founder and chef Lee Wallach, bringing that food to a wider audience is part of the appeal.
“So many people aren’t able to experience Phila’s food, so it’s exciting that we can help to get his delicious cooking to more people,” he says.
Wallach founded Home Appétit in 2014, growing a one-chef operation into a meal-delivery business staffed by more than 40 restaurant-trained cooks. The team prepares a changing weekly menu of entrées and smaller dishes from scratch, which even includes butchering meat in-house. Meals arrive chilled with heating instructions at homes across Philadelphia, the surrounding suburbs, parts of South Jersey, and the Wilmington area.
Mawn’s papaya salad
The chef collaborations began during COVID, when Wallach’s business was growing while restaurants were struggling. The first, with Nick Elmi, raised money for restaurant employees. The program evolved into partnerships supporting local causes, chosen by the participating chefs, including Kalaya’s Nok Suntaranon, Amanda Shulman of Her Place Supper Club, and Omar and Cybille Tate of Honeysuckle. According to the company, it has donated more than $125,000 to date.
For this collaboration, Lorn has chosen the Francis Scott Key School, where he was a student while growing up in South Philadelphia and where he learned English from his Sicilian American teachers. On a recent visit to his former school, Lorn saw students recognize themselves in a successful chef from their neighborhood, and a school stretching its limited resources to serve them. “The school wasn’t equipped to do what they do, but they still do it,” he says. The donation is meant to support expanded library access, giving students additional time and a safe place to learn.
The collaboration comes as Home Appétit prepares to move into a newly renovated, 23,000-square-foot facility in Northwest Philadelphia. Wallach estimates the space will quadruple cooking capacity, and will bring together the kitchen, offices, and storage under one roof. The new space will also allow the company to expand its offerings, which might include stocking office refrigerators with prepared meals, offering at-home grill kits, adding delivery days, and opening a pickup window.
To order the Mawn collaboration, go to homeappetitphilly.com between October 27th and October 30th and enter your zip code to check delivery availability. Meals will arrive Monday, November 2nd. Home Appétit’s regular service starts at $100 and includes a choice of four dishes and four sides, with no subscription. New customers can use the code LORN20 for $20 off their first order that week.