Best restaurants in Battambang

Battambang is Cambodia’s laid-back second-largest city, known for its French-colonial shophouses, a lively art and gallery scene, and a food culture that mixes proper Khmer country cooking with a run of good cafes and social-enterprise restaurants that train young cooks. The riverside and the old centre are walkable, with bakeries, coffee roasters and Khmer-Western kitchens within a few blocks of each other.

Try the local specialities at the market in the morning, such as num banh chok (rice noodles with fish gravy), grilled river fish and Battambang-style beef, then use the cafes for the afternoon heat. Meals are cheap, around 2 to 5 USD at a local spot and 5 to 9 USD at a Western-facing restaurant. It is an easy overnight between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and the countryside around it, with rice fields, the bamboo train and vineyards, makes for gentle half-day trips. Coolest and greenest just after the rains, from November.