A certified chef and a woman who knows her mother’s recipes best will come together and prepare authentic Thai cuisine come Feb. 15.
The new restaurant, Song Kran Thai, is located where Six N Seven used to be at 20 St. Anne Street.
Brad Andreeff, owner of the new restaurant, says he bought the restaurant for his common-law wife after taking a three-year break from the food industry.
“She loved running the restaurants, I wanted to give her that joy back again,” he says.
Brad and Kanya Andreeff owned two Thai restaurants in Edmonton, which Brad says flourished from their authentic Thai cuisines.
“We were really busy, packed most of the time. When the first restaurant was doing really well, we decided to open a second location and it brought in a lot of people,” he explains.
Kanya Andreeff moved to Canada from Thailand in 1991, bringing her mother’s authentic Thai recipes with her.
“My cooking, I learned it from my mother. When I was young I helped her cook, that’s how I know how to cook,” she says. “I didn’t go to school to study food, all my recipes are from my family.”
Both Edmonton restaurants were staffed by members of Kanya’s family, who had to return to Thailand when immigration laws changed in 2014.
As a result both restaurants closed.
“It was really unfortunate that they had to be sold,” Brad says.
During that time the Andreeffs moved from Edmonton to Fort McMurray where Brad currently works at Suncor as a maintenance coordinator.
Brad was working long hours and Kanya was having a difficult time adjusting on her own. After a few years, Kanya decided she wanted to move back to the Edmonton area and open a new restaurant.
In the fall of 2016 the couple started looking for potential locations for sale. Kanya stumbled upon the Six N Seven restaurant that was up for sale and she immediately showed it to Brad.
He says the location had recently been renovated by the previous owners, making it a no-brainer decision.
“We like the community, I love living here and the people are really nice. Nothing was working out in Edmonton, and then Kanya saw this place on Kijiji. The kitchen looked good, we knew we could turn it over,” he explains.
Brad contacted a chef in Thailand who had worked at one of his other Thai restaurants in Edmonton, offering him a permanent placement in his new restaurant.
“He made excellent food so I thought of him right away. I asked him if he was available to move back here,” Brad says.
The chef, Terdchai ‘Tar’ Ganjanathavat, is a chef de cuisine who has some serious cooking skills tucked under his hat.
He attended the culinary school at Dusit Thani College, which is combined with the famously-known Le Cordon Bleu. When Brad contacted him he was working at a restaurant that offers organic, clean food options.
When he was offered the position, Ganjanathavat left his position in Thailand and prepared to make the move.
Now a permanent resident, he’s ready to roll up his sleeves and start cooking. The restaurant will be open Monday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sundays from noon until 8:30 p.m.
