Longtime Brewery Bhavana chef departs to open new restaurant of his own

After more than a decade leading the kitchens of Bida Manda and Brewery Bhavana, chef Lon Bounsanga will depart to open a new Laotian restaurant of his own.

Looking to the new Downtown Cary Park, Bounsanga will open SAAP in The Walker apartment building. The restaurant, which takes its name from the Laotian word for “delicious,” is slated to open this fall.

For the SAAP menu, Bounsanga will take some of the most popular dishes from his tenure at Bida Manda and Brewery Bhavana, including the signature pork belly soup, as well as green papaya salad, curries and crispy rice.

“It’s the right time for me,” Bounsanga said of leaving the two Raleigh restaurants. “As a seasoned chef, all the ingredients and resources are available to make this dream a reality.”

Bounsanga was the opening chef at Bida Manda in 2012 and later opened Brewery Bhavana in 2017, which shot to national fame on the back of a Bon Appetit Best New Restaurants inclusion and a James Beard Best New Restaurant nomination.

The pair of restaurants were two of Raleigh’s most popular spots, but in 2020 became unraveled following allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct involving co-owner and general manager Vansana Nolintha and beverage director Jordan Hester. Both have since departed Bhavana and Nolintha is no longer an owner, according to corporate filings.

In building his first restaurant in Cary, Bounsanga expects SAAP to fit in and mirror the dining diversity of the Wake County town.

SAAP will be much smaller and intimate than the sprawling Bhavana, at just 70 seats in a 2,600 square foot space. The building is owned by developer Bill Zahn, who approached Bounsanga for the project.

“I think that Laotian food, which is influenced by Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisines, is a perfect fit for a community that is as diverse as Cary. So when developer Bill Zahn approached me about opening a restaurant next to what is going to be a world-class park, it made sense immediately.”