Featured Image: Courtesy Arnold Myint
Food wasn’t a choice for Arnold Myint; it was an inheritance.
Long before becoming a James Beard semifinalist, he was eating out of his aunties’ purses and climbing rice sacks in the back of his family’s Thai restaurant, International Market & Restaurant. His parents, Win and Patti Myint, opened the restaurant in 1975 near Belmont University, introducing many Nashvillians to their first taste of traditional Thai cuisine.
And yet, his path to claiming that inheritance was anything but linear.
In his early 20s, Myint wasn’t in the kitchen at all—he was in the rink, touring internationally as a competitive figure skater. Night after night, he performed, traveled, and tasted his way through new cities.
“The irony is, when I came back from traveling, all my journals were about what I ate, where I went, and even what the interiors of the restaurants looked like,” says Myint.
When that chapter ended, he set his sights on New York City, chasing a career in theater. Like so many before him, he took restaurant jobs to pay the bills. However, it didn’t take long to realize survival in the city would require something more substantial. His father, an educator, offered to cover any form of schooling, and Myint enrolled in the Institute of Culinary Education. While it began as a practical decision, the experience unlocked something deeper.
Within only a few years of formal training and working across New York City restaurants, Myint landed a spot on season 7 of Top Chef—his first major entry into the national spotlight.
“I wanted to be on The Real World,” Myint says. “Too short for Top Model, not interested in Project Runway, but I was going to be on Bravo regardless. So what’s my in? A cooking show.”
What followed was a decade of experimentation. Myint opened restaurants, chased television opportunities, moved to Los Angeles, worked in content and hospitality, and built a career that touched nearly every corner of the food world. But despite the momentum, he still felt untethered creatively.
“I’m an Asian born in Nashville that was an ice skater and does drag. I cooked in French restaurants in New York, had a culinary background through my family’s restaurant, and wanted to position myself as your gay best friend,” says Myint. “I was trying to be a jack and jill of all trades, but not really much authority in anything in particular.”
In the end, his moment of clarity arrived through grief. After the passing of both of his parents, Myint turned to his mother Patti’s recipes as a means of connection.
Their final conversation, in particular, helped define the way he cooks today. While beginning the early stages of pitching a cookbook, Myint called his mother to ask for his grandmother’s shumai dumpling recipe.
“She said, ‘Honey, don’t ever change this recipe. It’s perfect,’” he recalls. “Then, as we were getting off the phone, she said, ‘Be good, I love you.’ Those were the last words she ever said to me.”
For Myint, the exchange served as both permission and responsibility: preserve the dishes that carry meaning, but also evolve and grow as an individual.
Today, International Market & Restaurant honors the foundation his parents built nearly five decades ago, while equally reflecting the many seasons of Myint’s journey.
This newfound clarity brought international recognition, including a spot on the Michelin Guide and a two-star Thai Select designation from the Royal Thai Government — an honor recognizing authenticity and excellence in Thai cuisine. In 2025, he released Family Thai, weaving together recipes, essays, and memories from growing up Thai in Tennessee.
“Everything I wished for in the last 15 years came to fruition in the last three,” says Arnold Myint. “Once you really understand who you are and what your lane is, everything else happens organically.”
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