Chef Edward Lee’s new eatery pays homage to ‘Culinary Class Wars’ dishes : NPR

Korean American chef Edward Lee’s declare to fame had as a lot to do together with his story as his scrumptious dishes: a local New Yorker travels to Louisville, Ky., and upon first bites, immediately falls in love with collard greens and fried rooster.

Lee went all in on Southern comfort food, incorporating Korean components and flavors which helped put him on the map. His profession took off and he went on to compete in Prime Chef and Iron Chef America, put together a state dinner on the White Home, and win a James Beard Award alongside the best way.

Not too long ago, on the hit Netflix cooking competitors Culinary Class Wars, the 52-year-old had a brand new story about himself to inform — one about belonging and the trial and error that comes with being a part of two cultures. It was additionally the primary time he shared his Korean title “Kyun” on tv.

“To be trustworthy, I struggled very a lot with my Korean identification. Am I American? Or am I Korean?” Lee mentioned slowly and punctiliously in Korean. (After the present aired, Lee admitted that he employed a Korean tutor three weeks earlier than taping.)

In Culinary Class Wars, 80 native cooks and 20 famend superstar cooks battle to show who’s the most effective in South Korea. The present gained world reputation. It has been greenlit for season 2.

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Sangwoo Kim/Netflix

He shared a bit of his journey throughout the first mission of the semifinal spherical, the place contestants had been tasked to current a “life-defining” dish. Lee served bibimbap — a conventional Korean rice bowl that deliciously mixes meats and greens. He likened it to how he is come to embrace his Korean heritage and American upbringing.

“After I deal with cooking, these ideas fade away. I can merely loosen up and simply work arduous to deliver out one taste. That is what’s most vital to me. That one taste,” he mentioned. “If you first have a look at bibimbap, it has quite a lot of components and a variety of colours. However once you combine it, it creates one taste.”

Lee completed second out of a 100 proficient cooks on Culinary Class Wars. However the Netflix sequence has spurred a brand new culinary chapter for the seasoned chef. At Shia, his new restaurant in Washington, D.C., Lee is continuous the dialog, exploring what it means to be Korean American in actual time and documenting his journey by means of every dish. He is diving deep into Korean American delicacies, transferring past conventional recipes and fusion ideas to create one thing uniquely his personal. One dish that may absolutely make an look is his iconic bibimbap.

“I sort of need to proceed happening this path, no matter meaning and no matter it appears to be like like,” he instructed NPR.

Lee stands for a portrait inside Shia, his new restaurant at Union Market in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 22.

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Shuran Huang/For NPR

Lee’s culinary ardour stemmed from watching his grandmother cook dinner when he was rising up. It did not harm that Lee was from Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood — a melting pot of cultures — the place Pakistani, Jamaican and Italian meals had been all simply across the nook. Lee obtained his first kitchen job at 16 and opened a small Korean eatery in decrease Manhattan after graduating from New York College. However after the occasions of Sept. 11, Lee felt he wanted a change.

That is when he recalled his go to to the Kentucky Derby just a few months prior and the way his first bowl of collard greens felt like “residence.” So, in 2002, he moved to Louisville and commenced working at 610 Magnolia with former chef and proprietor Eddie Garber, who later handed the restaurant on to him. Lee continues to personal the enterprise in the present day. He additionally opened a number of different eating places over time, together with Whiskey Dry in Louisville and Succotash in Washington, D.C.

Lee mentioned there was a freedom about being a Korean American New Yorker cooking Southern delicacies. “As a result of I am not 100% Southern, I haven’t got the burden of cooking appropriate Southern meals the best way that every one Southerners have achieved it for generations. I can stay on this world the place I can straddle the 2 cultures and I can sort of do no matter I would like,” he mentioned.

Lee speaks to a reporter inside his restaurant, Shia.

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Shuran Huang/For NPR

However over time, there was a loneliness, too. “In some methods, typically I really feel unhappy. I am not 100% Korean, I am not 100% American, I am someplace in between.”

Lee’s restaurant, Shia, is seen at Union Market in Washington, D.C.

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Shuran Huang/For NPR

Earlier than Lee filmed Culinary Class Wars, the restaurant-to-be was named “M. Frances” to pay homage to American meals author and certainly one of Lee’s function fashions M.F.Okay. Fisher. On the time, Lee hadn’t but selected a selected menu however he knew he wished it to be mission-driven, centered on discovering options for the culinary world’s gaps in sustainability and variety.

Across the similar time, Lee was reflecting an increasing number of on Korean meals. In 2023, he was chosen because the visitor chef for the White House state dinner throughout South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s go to. That 12 months, he additionally opened a conventional Korean barbecue restaurant in Louisville. “What’s Korean meals? And what’s Korean identification?” Lee recalled asking himself.

These questions got here much more into focus whereas competing on the Netflix sequence. “I actually loved a few of the meals I made on the present, and I questioned if there was a solution to protect a few of the dishes,” he mentioned.

Now named Shia, which attracts inspiration from the Korean phrase for seed, Lee’s 22-seat Korean fine-dining restaurant is geared towards lowering plastic. He is employed analysis assistants to trace and analyze prices, and plans to that share knowledge with different eateries in hopes it would encourage them to undertake extra sustainable practices. For now, this “experiment” as Lee calls it is just meant to final 5 years, which is when his restaurant’s lease ends.

“I actually loved a few of the meals I made on the present, and I questioned if there was a solution to protect a few of the dishes,” Lee mentioned of his look on Culinary Class Wars.

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Shuran Huang/For NPR

“The purpose has all the time been to encourage dialog, dialogue, to spur creativity, and to encourage individuals to do comparable issues of their hometown,” he mentioned.

Shia has kept away from cling wrap and plastic containers and invested in supplies like eco-friendly trash baggage. Some components like soy sauce nonetheless arrive in plastic packaging — a problem they’re working to handle within the coming months. Shia additionally has an open-kitchen structure in an effort to observe transparency with its patrons. Lee additionally intends to run a girls’s chef mentorship program from the restaurant.

The day I met chef Edward Lee at Shia, his crew was perfecting their recipe for an ice cream dessert that comes with the toasty, barely bitter notes of barley tea, generally known as boricha in Korean.

The drink is so frequent within the Korean neighborhood that it’s usually merely known as “sizzling water” and it’s the very first thing you’re requested about when seated in a Korean restaurant. Reworking it into an ice cream taste wasn’t only a nod to his Korean heritage — it was a solution to evoke shared reminiscences.

“I wished to take that reminiscence of boricha and make it completely different,” Lee mentioned.

For me as a child, I used to recoil every time I unintentionally sipped from my dad and mom’ cup of heat barley tea. Years later, after transferring away from residence and going by means of my very own Korean American identification disaster, I used to be served barley tea at a small Korean restaurant. The primary style introduced on a wave of sudden homesickness that moved me to tears. The drink did not clear up all my issues, however for a short second, there was nowhere else I might slightly be.

Shia, which attracts inspiration from the Korean phrase for seed, is geared towards lowering plastic.

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Shuran Huang/For NPR

Even after taping Culinary Class Wars, Lee mentioned he’s nonetheless determining what it means to belong however there may be one factor he’s extra sure about than ever.

“I feel the hope and the encouragement is that you just do belong someplace, all of us belong someplace, even when we do not really feel like we’ve a real identification, there’s a place the place you belong,” he mentioned.