Num Pang Sandwich Shop Arrives in Boston This Fall
Num Pang. / Photo by Evan Sung provided
A restaurant group that has been called New York City’s No. 1 fast-casual brand, and the city’s “quietest restaurant empire” is making the move to Boston. Num Pang, a Cambodian-inspired sandwich shop, is headed for the Prudential Center late this fall.
Cofounders and chefs Ben Daitz and Ratha Chaupoly—who met at Worcester’s Clark University in the 1990s—opened the first Num Pang in 2009, a spinoff from Chaupoly’s now-closed Kampuchea Restaurant. “Num pang” means sandwich in Chaupoly’s native Cambodian. Before teaming up, Daitz had staged at New York restaurants including Daniel and Le Cirque, and worked at Tabla. Chaupoly worked at Fleur de Sel, the Elephant Walk, and more, and also has experience exporting Maine uni.
The duo noticed the popularity of the num pang at Kampuchea, and created a “cross-cultural mash-up” of a menu for the offshoot. Chewy baguettes are piled with fillings like coconut tiger shrimp, roasted cauliflower with chili soy eggplant spread, and hoisin meatballs, and there are rice bowls, soups, salads, and sides, like a spicy Cambodian slaw, and grilled seasonal vegetables with a chive lime vinaigrette.
“Num Pang’s not like the bánh mì shops,” Daitz told NY Mag‘s Grubstreet in 2013. “We definitely try to clarify that. The traditional ones are more about cold cuts and paté, and we like to play around.”
In New York, Num Pang has released special-edition collaborations with chefs like Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, Mario Batali, and more, plus celebrities like the Beastie Boys’s Ad-Rock.
Num Pang. / Photo by Evan Sung provided
The Prudential location will be the company’s ninth restaurant, and its first outside New York. It’s on track to open late fall 2016.
Elsewhere in the Prudential, Anna’s Taqueria is developing its eighth location, and Dig Inn, which made its first foray outside New York with a Boylston Street restaurant earlier this summer, is opening another location there by early 2017.
A three-floor, 45,000-square foot Italian food emporium and marketplace is also on its way to the Back Bay building. Eataly, from Mario Batali’s restaurant group, will bring six restaurants, a rooftop grill, a brewery with a retractable ceiling and patio, and more than 15,000 retail products with it when it opens in November.
