AsiaLIFE

As Hagar Restaurant settles into a new location, Jessica Bloom speaks with the food-focused company’s managing director. Photos by Conor Wall.

Hagar feeds a lot of people. Between its catering business and two restaurants, it’s safe to say that thousands of people eat Hagar’s food every day. If that number seems high, consider that their clients include embassies, international schools, hotels and garment factories. Vast numbers of people around Phnom Penh take a break from work to tuck into Hagar’s pan-Asian salads, noodles and baked goods on a daily basis.

Hagar Catering’s managing director, Rapytha Bonamy, says that these canteen-style staff meals are at the “core of their business.” Cooked onsite, Hagar caters everything from small private meetings to thousand-person events.

Starting with Quantum Clothing, Hagar has also introduced an initiative to provide garment factories with meals for the workers.

“We really do believe,” Bonamy says, “that if they have a proper meal, we can avoid them eating outside when it’s rainy season, or when it’s very hot. They can have one real meal that’s healthy and hygienic. This can help to improve living conditions.”

It’s no surprise that Hagar Catering is concerned with the social welfare of Cambodia’s workers—it is, after all, affiliated with an NGO of the same name that is “committed to the recovery, empowerment and reintegration of women and children”. The women who are trained for hospitality work by Hagar NGO will have a job waiting for them afterwards at Hagar Catering.

“Our goal is to hire, in priority, vulnerable people,” Bonamy explains. Ultimately, she says, “we are a business, a private company, but when people are coming from the social programme, we are understanding about their abilities.” It is a safe and compassionate environment to develop their skills.

This month, the environment for Hagar Catering’s restaurant has been upgraded—out of its old building on St. 288 and into a bigger space on St. 310. The dining room is more open, modern and houses double the amount of seating. There is also an in-house meeting room, with technological amenities, available for rent—catered, of course. It serves as an alternative to hotels for companies or NGOs who need extra space.

It might be comforting for many Phnom Penh diners to know that hygiene reigns supreme at Hagar. Bonamy waxes poetic about the new restaurant’s centralised kitchen that ensures that “what is dirty and what is clean don’t have to meet.” This kitchen is the heart of both the restaurant and the catering business, and will also provide room to produce new menu items. A cooled work station, for example, is the perfect place for the bakery to craft pastries that wouldn’t turn out as well in the heat.

Hagar’s restaurant will continue to serve its popular buffet that offers both Asian and Western dishes for US$6.50. From kimchi to ratatouille to Khmer pancakes, the buffet houses fresh food that changes from breakfast to lunch to dinner. The highlight is definitely the two live stations where chefs cook noodle dishes right in front of patrons’ eyes.

It might be a new location, but the formula is still the same: high quality at large quantities. All over Phnom Penh, people are reaping the rewards.

Hagar Catering & Restaurant, 44 Street 310, Tel: 023 551 201, Open daily from 7am to 9pm.