Life has a way of bringing you full circle. For Chef Napol “Joe” Jantraget, his career spanned southern Thailand, a decade in Canada, touched down at Bangkok’s Michelin-starred 80/20, and then, deliberately, landed right back on the streets of his hometown. There was born: Samlor.
It sits on a corner lot on Charoen Krung Road in Bang Rak. Outside, on a glass pane, white neon with glowing red “O,” shaped like three wheels, references the name. After all, Samlor means tricycle in Thai. Inside, the space feels lived in. From wooden tables and distressed walls to its especially curated playlist, everything here is a statement. Even Joe’s iconic baseball cap that he always wears. Always. He’s got about 80 of them at home, he told Prestige magazine. His favorite, though, is his Toronto Blue Jays cap because Toronto, for him, holds memories.
In his own words, he was a wild child once. Parties, drugs, the whole destructive spiral. The only redeemable thing was that he didn’t want his parents to die, knowing their son was still in bad shape. So he left for Canada and got a degree in Hospitality Management from Niagara College.
The turning point came during an introductory kitchen class, when he watched chefs work and put together different sauces. Cooking suddenly made sense, and so he enrolled at Liaison College for intensive French technique training. A chef there saw potential and sent him to Crème Brasserie in Yorkville, Toronto.
That’s where the wild child became a chef. And that’s also where he met Saki Hoshino.
Joe, Saki, and the Building of Samlor
Saki Hoshino was initially studying tourism at Niagara College. But when Joe shifted to culinary, she followed. She attended George Brown College in Toronto, another respected culinary school. Together, they built their lives in Canada for eleven years.
Then Saki’s family wanted her back in Japan. Joe had been following what was happening in Bangkok. Joël Robuchon was coming to the city. He saw a chance, and they both came home.
They joined the opening team at 80/20. The restaurant won a Michelin star. They became known for innovative cooking and for sourcing from neighborhood markets and regional farms.
But they left early. And that’s the interesting part.
According to Kenny Mah, Joe and Saki opened Samlor in Charoen Krung in April 2022. Its menu pulls from Thai street food, Japanese home cooking, and North American diner fare. The Thai Wagyu Beef Burger comes loaded with caramelized onions, demi-glace, white cheddar, bone marrow aioli, chili tomato paste, dill pickle, and fried shallots. It shouldn’t work at all, but it does.
Their poutine is a nod to Canada. It screams: We lived somewhere else and we’re not pretending we didn’t.
Joe’s southern Thai childhood shows up in khao mun gai, which is basically Thai chicken rice with white radish soup. Kenny Mah mentions how every meal at Samlor came with a clear soup.
The chicken wings, on the other hand, come in three ways: Fish Sauce Glaze, Mala Powder for that Sichuan peppercorn buzz, and Smoked Wings with Jinda Chili Butter Sauce. You can get a trio. (You probably should!)
Then there’s the omelette. The Samlor Thai Omelette costs 280 baht, and almost every review online mentions it. It arrives like a fluffy cloud. Almost a soufflé. You cut it open, and creamy egg yolk flows out like lava. Inside, there’s hot jasmine rice. The whole thing comes with chili, garlic fish sauce, and homemade chili sauce. Multiple reviewers (like TheRantingPanda) said they’d return just for it. BK Magazine called it the real deal. The Michelin Guide said if you’re ordering one thing, make it the omelette.
Saki handles desserts through Yora, her artisanal ice cream brand. She uses only natural ingredients. Her Japanese and Thai influences here become more than evident. White Malt & Toob-Tab is based on the popular Thai peanut candy, toob tub. Matcha Cookie Dough draws from Japanese green tea with an American classic.
Some flavors push boundaries. Take Chilli Rocky Road, for example. Fish Sauce Caramel, carried over from their 80/20 days. Sour Mango & Nam Pla Waan that mirrors the flavors Thai office workers know from their lunch break snack. For Saki, as long as she has her ingredients handy, possibilities are endless.
Once a wild child, Joe is now, according to the Michelin Guide, a different person. He still wears a baseball cap and sports a wild child somewhere underneath, but now he’s a father and a husband. He takes his daughter, Mia, to Benchasiri Park, where he watches people jog and play sports at 9 or 10 am when the sun isn’t too strong. He shops at Or Tor Kor Market for seasonal produce and spends time at Thung Thamna, an organic agricultural learning center, where he teaches Mia about sustainability – the same values he and Saki built into their cooking.
He now runs four restaurants through his consultancy company, Banana Blossom: Samlor, where he’s a partner; Kwann on Sukhumvit Soi 13; the Michelin-starred Nawa Thai Cuisine at Park Lane Ekkamai; and Verlan on Sukhumvit Soi 26, which serves French bistro food with Thai ingredients. There’s also Saat, a cafe that Saki opened.
He told Prestige his favorites are Samlor and Verlan because those are places he’d actually eat at regularly. Samlor is the kind of spot where if he lived nearby and didn’t see enough kai jeaw in the neighborhood, he’d go once a week. And that’s the whole point.
Joe and Saki could have kept chasing stars, but they chose to focus on their food.
As Kenny Mah puts it, You can take a chef out of fine dining, but you can’t take the fine dining out of the chef. At Samlor, Joe and Saki prove there’s no conflict in that.
The Recognition, the Critique, and the Team
Samlor earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2024. Around the same time, Joe earned Nawa its first Michelin star, along with the Michelin Opening of the Year award. With these recognitions, Joe’s entire focus has widened.
He’s now building a core team he calls his Avengers: Head Chef New from Samlor. Sep from Nawa. Bom from Kwann. Mew from Verlan, who was part of the original 80/20 team. They meet once or twice a month for lunch, talk through problems, and share what they’re going through. Joe knows his direction might change, but he can’t do it alone.
And then there’s Saki. She gives him honest critiques. The kind that would upset him coming from anyone else. But because it’s her, he listens. Sometimes he does things the way she said, even if she doesn’t think he will.
That dynamic holds the whole thing together – The restaurants, the team, and the choices grounded in trust, memory, and people who know him well enough to speak freely.
The Point of It All
Samlor means tricycle. Three wheels. But it also references a way to move forward that’s powered by you.
You can find Samlor on Charoen Krung Road in Bangrak.
Go there for the omelette, but stay because that’s what it looks like when a wild child grows up, wins Michelin stars twice, and then returns to cooking honest food in his own neighborhood with the person who believed in him enough to follow him across the world and back home again.
That experience in itself would be worth savouring 100 times over.
