MOFAD x Gastro Obscura Presents: My Korea with Hooni Kim

Hailed by the New York Times as “the leading interpreter of Korean food in New York,” Hooni Kim has defined Korean food in America with his two restaurants, Danji and Hanjan.

Born in Seoul and raised in New York City, Chef Kim grappled with his own identity as a Korean American while working in the French kitchen of Daniel and the Japanese kitchen of Masa. Even as he sought to incorporate the flavors of his heritage into his own cooking, the White Castle sliders and Buffalo wings of his youth made playful appearances in experimental  “fusion” dishes that illustrated who he was as a Korean American chef. It wasn’t until Kim earned a Michelin star for his first restaurant, Danji, and began to visit Korea several times a year that his expression of Korean food began to evolve.

Today, Hooni Kim’s food is an authentic assertion of the food he tasted in the countryside markets and restaurants of Korea. As he states in his cookbook, “I do not believe in watering down the unique flavors of traditional dishes because of the misconception that Korean flavors have to be muted in order to appeal to the American palate.”

With his first cookbook, My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes, Kim has written a powerful culinary legacy and an essential collection of recipes that epitomize his views on traditional Korean food, current interpretations and future extrapolations.

Join Chef Kim for a virtual conversation with James Beard Award-winning food writer, Cathy Erway. They will discuss Kim’s own evolution as a Korean American chef and the journey that led him to write his first cookbook, a deeply personal love letter to the food and land of Korea.