{"id":314767,"date":"2026-10-26T20:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/314767\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T20:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:04:09","slug":"cant-get-into-mawn-heres-how-to-get-it-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/314767\/","title":{"rendered":"Can\u2019t Get Into Mawn? Here\u2019s How to Get It at Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNews<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Phila Lorn\u2019s limited-time collaboration with Home App\u00e9tit brings the flavors of the celebrated Cambodian restaurant to your door and supports his former South Philly school.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"mawn<\/p>\n

Phila and Rachel Lorn at Mawn \/ Photography courtesy of Home App\u00e9tit<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re among the many diners who have yet to land a reservation at Mawn, there\u2019s another way to taste chef Phila Lorn\u2019s lauded Southeast Asian cooking<\/a> \u2014 for a few days, at least.<\/p>\n

Home App\u00e9tit<\/a>, the Philadelphia-based meal delivery service, is partnering with the chef on a limited-time menu inspired by his \u201cCambodian noodle house with no rules\u201d and the food he grew up eating.<\/p>\n

The collaboration is part of Home App\u00e9tit\u2019s 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<\/a> with his wife, Rachel, the menu features Mawn nyawm salad and Sunday chicken curry with an Italian Market baguette \u2014 two dishes that reflect his Cambodian roots and South Philly upbringing.<\/p>\n

The nyawm salad, available on Mawn\u2019s lunch menu, is a dish Lorn grew up eating at Cambodian gatherings. \u201cIt\u2019s ceremonial,\u201d he says. \u201cAt temples they have it. At funerals, at birthdays, it\u2019s always in existence.\u201d The Home App\u00e9tit 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.<\/p>\n

The adaptation also swaps Mawn\u2019s house-pickled chilies for the pickled cherry peppers \u2014 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. \u201cYou\u2019ll taste the nostalgia of eating a cheesesteak,\u201d Lorn says. \u201cI\u2019m making it ultra-homey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mawn\u2019s chicken curry via Home App\u00e9tit<\/p>\n

The Sunday chicken curry, meanwhile, was a staple in Lorn\u2019s 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\u2019s for bread. \u201cWe would just hand tear it and dip it, dunk it into the curry,\u201d the chef says.<\/p>\n

The limited menu features a braised chicken leg in coconut curry with potatoes and long beans, paired with a Sarcone\u2019s baguette for soaking up the sauce. The curry isn\u2019t on Mawn\u2019s 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\u2019s cooking.<\/p>\n

For Home App\u00e9tit founder and chef Lee Wallach, bringing that food to a wider audience is part of the appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people aren\u2019t able to experience Phila\u2019s food, so it\u2019s exciting that we can help to get his delicious cooking to more people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Wallach founded Home App\u00e9tit 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 entr\u00e9es 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mawn\u2019s papaya salad<\/p>\n

The chef collaborations began during COVID, when Wallach\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cThe school wasn\u2019t equipped to do what they do, but they still do it,\u201d he says. The donation is meant to support expanded library access, giving students additional time and a safe place to learn.<\/p>\n

The collaboration comes as Home App\u00e9tit 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.<\/p>\n

To order the Mawn collaboration, go to homeappetitphilly.com<\/a> between October 27th and October 30th and enter your zip code to check delivery availability. Meals will arrive Monday, November 2nd. Home App\u00e9tit\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News Phila Lorn\u2019s limited-time collaboration with Home App\u00e9tit brings the flavors of the celebrated Cambodian restaurant to your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-314767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}