Faye Poonsiripukdeekul
Star Provisions and W.H. Stiles Fish Camp | Atlanta
april 2023
Growing up in Bangkok, Thailand, Faye Poonsiripukdeekul would sit down to a dinner of fresh seafood courtesy of her mother’s fishery business. Poonsiripukdeekul loved being in the kitchen, but went on to attend law school instead, with the hopes of pleasing her mother. After a few years, she was deeply unhappy with her career, and knew she needed to change her path. She left her job and enrolled at Bangkok's Wandee Culinary Art School. Poonsiripukdeekul worked the line at a number of restaurants in the city, but wanted to expand her culinary horizons even further. At 32 years old, she packed her bags and traveled to the U.S. to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. After graduating in 2014, Poonsiripukdeekul moved to Atlanta and took a line cook position at Bacchanalia under Rising Stars alum Anne Quatrano. The following year, she joined the team at the newly opened W.H. Stiles Fish Camp. It was there that she tapped into her background, flexing the fish fabrication skills she learned growing up, and cooking Thai dishes for family meals.
In 2016, Poonsiripukdeekul began working more closely with Quatrano on special projects as a consulting chef. She then moved to Quatrano’s Floataway Cafe, where she began to introduce her own Thai-inflected dishes to the restaurant’s menu, like her larb with dry-aged strip steak, fish sauce, makrut lime leaf, and brown rice cracker. With the closing of Floataway in late 2022, Poonsiripukdeekul now serves as executive chef of both Star Provisions and W.H. Stiles Fish Camp. She embraces the challenge of leading two different teams and developing two different menus, while remaining dedicated to sharing her Thai heritage through her cooking.
