Meet Our Vendors: Kottu
Syd at An Incredible Feast 2022 (Photo by Megan Swann)
Syd Suntha is the Seattle food scene’s jack of all trades. He’s been in the game for years, and has gained loyal fans, followers, and friends every step of the way, with each new unique project exposing him to a new audience of Seattle foodies. “I hear it, because people are like ‘oh that’s the guy from Skillet,’ ‘Oh that’s the Wu Tang guy,’ ‘I think I’ve seen that dude on Instagram,’” Syd explains. “I’ve been around so long working at different restaurants.”
The project that got his name out beyond the Seattle food circle was his infamous 36-course Wu Tang-themed dinner in 2022. The dinner was a full interactive experience, featuring 9 chefs, specialty cocktails, live painting, break dancing, live music, and more. The story of the dinner was picked up by Forbes, Vibe, and Yahoo, to name a few.
Since the Wu Tang dinner, Syd has done a few more pop-culture pop-ups, and has plans for more in the future. The pop-up dinners are a passion project for Syd. “I'm talking to people that make merchandise and art, and I feel like it's the same thing. It’s just fan art and I'm just doing food that is fan art,” he says.
If the pop-up dinners are his passion project, then Kottu is his “day job.” Syd says that the Kottu food cart that he travels with to farmers markets and breweries is actually how he supports himself and his family, while the pop-up dinners can sometime cost more than he makes. The balance between the wildly creative pop-up dinners and the consistency and routine of the food cart have created a great way for Syd to do a little bit of everything.
Photo by Megan Swann
Kottu is a late-night dish that originated in Sri Lanka that is traditionally made up of onions, carrots, cabbage, roti, and curry. Using that traditional dish almost as a blank canvas, Syd added his own creative twists to the menu. “I’m just kind of sick of the word ‘authentic,’” he says, explaining why he chose to add fun twists like brightly-colored aiolis and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to his Kottu recipes.
With his background in the food truck scene, Syd was used to the late-night brewery crowd, and worried that people wouldn’t want to wake up early for his food, but he was pleasantly surprised by the loyalty and support he got from farmers market shoppers.
“The people that go to farmers markets early in the morning, they’re trying to support as local as possible, and that’s what farmers markets are,” Syd says. “They’re just like hyper-local. It’s just a great interaction. I just love the symbiotic relationship between the farmers market demographic and what we do. I’m absolutely in love with it and I’m going to do it for the rest of my life.”
After a difficult few years, including becoming a single parent after a divorce and getting sober, Syd is grateful to finally have something that is all his own. “I come from the music industry. I've worked for bigger bands. I've worked for other chefs. I've always kind of done the hard work but never gotten the credit for doing it. After grinding so hard, it’s super amazing and I'm super grateful for the press and the admiration I've been gaining lately.”
You can hop on the Kottu bandwagon at the Phinney Farmers Market on Fridays from 3-7!