Chompon “Boong” Boonnak’s Imaginative Take on Thai Food Earns Michelin Recognition and Fuels New Ventures

When the Michelin Guide included Boston for the first time, one of the restaurants it recognized was Mahaniyom, a 35-seat Thai restaurant in Brookline run by Chompon “Boong” Boonnak (BU MET’13) and a team he has known for over a decade. Mahaniyom was built on a specific idea: Thai food in Boston could be more than takeout. Boong envisioned a place where the food was rooted in childhood memories and cocktails were inspired by the flavors of Thailand. 

That vision earned Mahaniyom a Bib Gourmand and earned Boong the Exceptional Cocktail Award in Michelin's inaugural Boston edition. His second restaurant, Merai, opened in 2024 two minutes away, offering global-inspired food with Thai flavor and a Southeast Asian cocktail program built around a different set of influences. 

In this conversation with Arun Upneja, Dean Emeritus of SHA, Boong talks about what it means to cook Thai food the right way in a city far from home; why he believes immigrants are the backbone of American hospitality; and how he thinks about building a team that operates like a family without losing the structure a growing business requires. He also reflects on consistency as the discipline behind every award, the role AI is starting to play in his day-to-day operations, and what the next chapter looks like: a cafe in the Coolidge Corner neighborhood of Brookline, MA, serving Thai coffee beans and pour-over, workshops on Sato fermented rice wine, and a fast-casual concept he hopes to bring to BU. 

Email us at shadean@bu.edu

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. 

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Executive Director of Strategic Operations and Corporate Relations
Research and Content Creation: Lan Lu
Marketing: Anne Dawson
Editing: Isabella Laikin and James Leon

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0