Lao Der Is Chicago's First Sit-Down Lao Restaurant in Over a Decade

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You could say that Lao Der, Chicago’s only sit-down restaurant devoted to Southeast Asia’s Laos, began all the way back in Nuttawut “Frankie” Waljorhar’s and Jack Ekkaphanh’s infancy. While Ekkaphanh is from Laos’ capital Vientiane and Waljorhar is from Thailand’s northeastern Nong Khai province just across the Mekong, they have known each other their whole lives. They were even nursed together.

“We’re like brothers – but also friends!” says Waljorhar with the charming smile he frequently flashes while in his restaurants.

They grew up together and went to the same school before Waljorhar came to Chicago and later opened the well-regarded neighborhood restaurant Eathai in Logan Square. But Waljorhar has also long wanted to open a Lao restaurant with Ekkaphanh. When his old friend followed him to Chicago a couple years ago, he had him put together a menu for a prospective restaurant. Waljorhar identified a small storefront at 3922 N. Elston Ave. in Irving Park, where he had worked when it was a Thai restaurant, and eventually negotiated a lease. Lao Der opened in April, more than a year – one could say a lifetime – in the making.

“I think he’s very good [at] Lao cuisine,” says Waljorhar of Ekkaphanh. But that doesn’t mean Waljorhar didn’t critique Ekkaphanh’s recipes as they developed their menu. “I’m so picky,” Waljorhar says with a laugh. “I [would] say, ‘Not good enough yet.’” He and Ekkaphanh interact with the comfort of brothers, too, with Waljorhar turning to Ekkaphanh for answers about dishes and Ekkaphanh appealing to Waljorhar when he’s searching for a word in English. Waljorhar’s mom – who has known Ekkaphanh his whole life and moved to Chicago earlier this year – also helped taste and refine everything. “I want to [be able] to tell people everything is homemade, like my mom made,” Waljorhar says. “That’s why I want to share it with people.”

He and Ekkaphanh learned to cook from their moms and extended families – often together. Situated as they were on the border of Laos and Thailand, they encountered the food of both countries. Ekkaphanh’s brother has a restaurant and a street food stall in Vientiane, while Waljorhar’s mother comes from a family in which five out of seven siblings worked in food. Waljorhar’s aunt sold Esan sausage, a pork-based specialty of northeastern Thailand and Laos served in little balls twisted from a longer link. As a kid, Waljorhar helped his aunt make the sausage despite what he describes as his laziness, and Ekkaphanh also learned the recipe.

Their version is now on the menu at Lao Der, as is the Lao sausage sai ua, a coarsely ground pork sausage made bright and herbaceous by large chunks of lemongrass, galangal, lime leaf, and other flavorings typical of Southeast Asia. It’s served with a vinegared tomato-and-chili-based jeow or dipping sauce that’s an integral part of Lao eating – and is a bit like Sriracha. Lao sausages are typically fermented, but Ekkaphanh keeps the tangy sourness very light in one of his only concessions to Western taste. 

He was nervous to open a Lao restaurant at all, fearing that people wouldn’t understand or like the food. But Waljorhar encouraged and reassured him, and explains dishes to new customers – that’s why he insisted on having pictures on Lao Der’s menu, unlike at Eathai. “I talk a lot – I love to talk with people,” says Waljorhar – a contrast to the soft-spoken Ekkaphanh. “I want to share my culture, Jack’s culture, with everybody.” He opened Eathai because he couldn’t find Thai food that tasted like what he grew up with, and recreated recipes from memories of watching his family cook.

At Lao Der, Waljorhar shares with customers how he ate the chicken noodle soup khao piek sien almost every day while going to school; he used to live across the street from a shop that specialized in it. The dish’s simplicity – it’s the kind of comfort in a bowl that you crave when you’re sick – belies the effort behind it. Ekkaphanh simmers the subtle broth for four to five hours, finely chops chicken until it emulsifies into springy meatballs, rolls out his own chewy rice noodles by hand, and poaches chicken with its skin in the broth before the dish is ready to be served. Ground ginger in lime juice, chili oil, and fish sauce are all on hand to tailor the soup to individual taste. (While fish sauce is common in Thailand, the thicker, stronger, freshwater fish-based padaek is more typical in Laos.)

As khao piek sien and sai ua illustrate, one of the distinctions of Lao food is a pleasing variety of textures. Sticky rice served in a woven steamer is an essential accompaniment to any meal – it’s used as a utensil back in Laos. Raw cabbage provides crunch to contrast with the juiciness of Esan sausage or toothsome chew of aromatic beef jerky, another typical Lao dish. Coconut and peanuts offer the same purchase in the chopped salad of fermented pork and aromatics called nam khao – a dish that Waljorhar has been pleasantly surprised to see become one of Lao Der’s most popular. Nam khao has some similarities to the zingy ground meat salads known as lab, laab, or larb that can also be found on some Thai menus.

Diners familiar with the flavors of Thai restaurants will find Lao Der approachable even if they haven’t heard of the dishes. (Don’t go expecting as many noodle dishes, however.) Lao Der even offers a Thai version of papaya salad, alongside two Lao iterations, one with crab – but the papaya is cut into ribbons rather than julienned. Nevertheless, Waljorhar wanted to be sure Lao Der was distinct from Thai restaurants; he wanted to showcase Lao cuisine.

While Lao restaurants have begun to pop up and even win critical attention around the country, thanks in large part to the success, advocacy, and mentorship of Seng Luangrath in the Washington, D.C. area, it has been more than a decade since Chicago had a sit-down Lao restaurant. You can find the occasional dish on a Thai menu, and the pandemic-born Laos to Your House offers delivery and pick-up from the food incubator The Hatchery on the West Side. Otherwise the closest restaurant seems to be in Elgin, where there is a small community of Laotians, according to Ekkaphanh. Waljorhar says they’ve had customers drive long distances to eat at Lao Der.

The partners want to add more dishes such as Lao bamboo soup, which patrons have requested, but for now they’re keeping the menu tight so that they can control the quality and make everything in house. “This place is small because I want to make a restaurant like it’s a family dinner,” says Ekkaphanh, who is the only person working in the kitchen.

Even though he and Waljorhar aren’t actually family, they may as well be – and now they’re sharing the recipes and tastes of their families with Chicago.