Mr. Lee, as a chef, how do you come up with ideas for new dishes?
For me, I think your recipes and your technique is going to come from the kitchen, but ideas come from everywhere. If you’re only stuck in the kitchen, only reading food magazines and consuming food media your whole life, you’ll never have an original thought. There’s a time when you’re learning and you have to spend every single waking moment learning about technique and food and ingredients, and that’s fine. Learn everything, and then at some point you have to forget everything. Just let it all go and stop reading and stop learning and just try to figure out who you are, what’s your story and what do you want to say in the world? That’s not going to come from reading a food magazine or learning a new technique, you have to just live. Whatever it is that excites you outside of a kitchen, go and do that.
And what has that been for you?
Well, in the more recent years of my life, it’s been travelling to Korea, where my family originates from. I’ve lived in the States my whole life, and although I grew up eating Korean food at home, I’ve started to embrace my culture more and more. Going to Korea recently felt like coming home. It stirred up a lot of emotions in me that were probably buried for decades, if not my whole life, because I’d never spent time like that in Korea. It brought up memories of my grandmother cooking and memories of growing up. What would my life have been if we never moved to America? Who would I have become? There was a lot of weight on me. I would visit all these little mom and pop restaurants and discover things, and remember eating something that I tried when I was 12 and it just moved something in me. A lot of that translated into the restaurant that I opened recently in Louisville called Shia.
“I was looking into the faces of the people who were growing my food, forming a relationship with them. And that trust is something that is important to me.”
How does a chef born in New York end up opening a series of restaurants in Louisville, Kentucky?
(Laughs) I had travelled to Louisville to help out a chef friend at his restaurant during the Kentucky Derby, actually. That was at 610 Magnolia, which is the restaurant I own now. It was a really impactful weekend, I spent five days there visiting farms and restaurants… I was a chef in New York City, as you said, and I mean, one of the things about New York is that you can call whoever and get your supplies and produce the next day. In Louisville, I was out at the farms, or at a cheese dairy, or in a field of organic vegetables. I was looking into the faces of the people who were growing my food, forming a relationship with them. And that trust is something that is really important to me, the connection to the land and the people. Moving there changed the way I source everything.
Apparently you also tried Southern food — a bowl of collard greens — and it really felt like home to you.
That was a few months after moving there, when I started to really understand just how important Southern food and culture is. There weren’t many options for restaurants serving Southern food at the time 22 years ago, so I would go learn from grandmothers, friends, parents, people who would cook for me in their homes. And then soul food at restaurants. But you’re right that it felt like home to me because even though it had none of the same ingredients that I grew up with, it still felt familiar. There’s a Korean seaweed soup that just… It has none of the same ingredients but I felt it was cooked with the same love and the same comfort, the same emotions are being stirred up in me when I eat. I started thinking, “Are Korean food and southern food really that different?”
And that’s when you decided to bring Korean food to Louisville, right?
Right, obviously there’s not a lot of Korean restaurants in Louisville. And so I found myself for the first time my life missing Korean food, because it was always accessible in New York; you never miss something if it’s there. And the more I studied southern food, the more I missed Korean food, because as I mentioned, they reminded me of one another. I kept thinking, “Oh, well, that’s really Korean,” or “Oh, we eat the same way.” That got me on this journey of thinking, “Why can’t we kind of find this connection between the two cuisines?” And that’s really what started my journey.
Was it easier to test out ideas and recipes in a restaurant far away from the critical eye of New York City?
Yeah, sure, there wasn’t a lot of attention on me. This was before social media, before camera phones, there was wasn’t a lot of media here. I wasn’t under a microscope, so I felt really free to do things, and the only feedback I got was from my customers, who were very honest with me. If they loved something, they told me, and if not, they told me that as well. I was able to really sort of hone my craft and make mistakes. That was the biggest thing! I was able to make mistakes without retribution, with feedback and criticism, but without retribution. And in order to grow as a chef, I needed to make those mistakes. I needed to have guardrails. I needed to have feedback. I needed to fail in order to understand what what success was. And so I felt very lucky to be able to be in this small kitchen in 610 Magnolia, cooking by myself.
Did you ever feel shy to introduce unfamiliar dishes and ingredients to your guests?
I tried to do things slowly, almost like a gateway. If you’ve never eaten kimchi before, it might be too much for you, but if I braise it in a stew with collard greens, all of a sudden, this is really good and they might be open to trying kimchi on its own. I delivered things in a package that seems sort of safe for you. It’s interesting because now, people are a lot less scared to try new food, it’s been a massive shift and that has been really cool.
“My deepest connection to Korea was always through food. Growing up, we ate Korean food every day at home. That was a language that I was very familiar with. It started there.”
Do you think that comes from easier access to different cultures via social media and the Internet?
I think so, yeah. As well as TV, books, movies… Even on American Netflix, you have access to Korean TV shows like Culinary Class Wars, a Korean cooking competition show that I participated in.
You were actually the winner of that series. How was the experience for you as the only Korean-American chef?
Oh, it was a really life altering experience to me. It was a chance to connect to something that was bigger than myself, bigger than my business, to connect to an identity that was always there, but I’d never really had the time or the energy to investigate. It was a big piece of my life that was missing. I even have a Korean name that my parents gave me, but we never used it, I was trying to assimilate to life in America. So I was always Edward, and my Korean name was always something hidden. I never told anyone My Korean name; it wasn’t that I was embarrassed of it, but it was always there in my back pocket. Even my wife didn’t know m y Korean name. I told myself, if I ever made it to the finals, let’s rip the bandaid! The whole show is also about name and identity, so I promised I would introduce my Korean name, Kyun, in the finals, never thinking that I would make it. But I did.
And has that had an impact on your identity as a chef now?
Well, my deepest connection to Korea was always through food. Growing up, maybe I didn’t know the history, maybe I didn’t know the culture, and I didn’t speak the language, but we ate Korean food every day at home. That was a language that I was very familiar with. It started there. So during the filming process, I spent more and more time in Korea, I learned about the culture, the ingredients, the food. I learned about the colonization of Korea, the history through food. It wasn’t fusion, it was something 100 percent Korean. So I really embraced that. It was very nerve wracking at first but it was a very important experience for me, and it really goes back to what I said earlier about starting with what you know and then forgetting it and figuring out who you are and what you want to say. My time in Korea really helped me connect with that, and it’s been a very incredible thing to try and tell this story through food.