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Supinya “Jay Fai” Junsuta
77 | Chef-Owner, Raan Jay Fai | Thailand
Jay Fai (whose given name is Supinya Junsuta, but everyone calls her by her nickname, which translates to “Sister Mole”) launched her seven-table Bangkok food stall in the 1980’s. For much of the last four decades, her work has looked the same—cooking six days a week over a hot charcoal flame, producing crab omelettes, drunken noodles with seafood and her spin on a dry tom yum soup. Her dishes always had their fair share of local devotees, but in 2018, Jay Fai hit a new level of fame when her stall received a Michelin star in the food guide’s inaugural Bangkok edition. She repeated the feat in 2019, and in 2021, Jay Fai was awarded 50 Best’s “Icon Award,” the first ever for a street food hawker. –Maggie McGrath
