Sohui Kim Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe magazine. Today's guest is Sohui Kim, the chef and co-owner of two very different Brooklyn restaurants. There's Insa, a fun spot known for Korean barbecue and karaoke, and Gage & Tollner, a beautifully restored historic spot in downtown Brooklyn with an amazing legacy. The late great Edna Lewis cooked there back in the day, and her spirit continues to infuse the dining room and the kitchen. Sohui has honored that legacy with care, intention, and lots of love. She is wise, empathetic, and, speaking of love, a much-loved part of the New York food scene. Sohui is also a cookbook author, a community-builder, and a mom. She was part of our Summer Tastemaker Tour, and if you joined us for our stop at Wildflower Farms in upstate New York, you got a little taste of what we're about to discuss. I'm thrilled to welcome her back to the show. Stay tuned for our chat.
Today's episode is presented by Visa and OpenTable. Want a chance to nab that impossible-to-get reservation or be among the first at a buzzy new opening? OpenTable and Visa have teamed up to make your dining dreams come true. With the Visa Dining Collection, eligible Visa credit card holders in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico get access to coveted prime-time reservations and culinary events through OpenTable. We're talking local legends, critical darlings, and award-winning restaurants at the times you actually want to eat. And that's not all. The Visa Dining Collection also includes special experiences, like chef collabs, preview dinners, and celebrations spotlighting incredible women in food. All you need to do is log into OpenTable, add your eligible Visa credit card, and unlock a world of delicious possibilities. The Cherry Bombe Summer Taste Tastemaker Tour is one of those experiences that eligible Visa credit card holders have access to. Our tour included stops at Lutie's, the prettiest garden restaurant overlooking the grounds of Commodore Perry's estate in Austin, the lovely Wildflower Farms Auberge Resort in upstate New York, and The Ground, an enchanting place in Willamette Valley, Oregon state's wine country. This Friday, August 15th, we'll be hosting our final Summer Tastemaker Tour event with Visa and OpenTable at The Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. I love The Frist. It's going to be a gorgeous evening, and there will even be a musical performance by Jessie Baylin. I love Jessie. I can't wait for that. Tickets are sold out, but you can join the waitlist at cherrybombe.com. If a seat opens up, folks on the waitlist get first dibs. Restrictions apply. For full terms and to see if your card qualifies, visit the Visa Dining Collection landing page. The link is in our show notes.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Sohui Kim, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Sohui Kim:
So great to be back. Thank you, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
So I went back and checked out our previous episodes. You are a three-timer. There's no prize that we give you, but we should probably come up with one. Congratulations.
Sohui Kim:
Honored.
Kerry Diamond:
And you were on the show so early. It was back when we were doing the show at Heritage Radio, literally in Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, in a shipping container.
Sohui Kim:
I remember. It was cute. They decorated it cute. You did the podcast, and you got a slice of pizza.
Kerry Diamond:
Sometimes they gave us free pizza. Those were the best days ever. And it was so funny, because you were on with a guest you had nothing to do with. It was Emshika Alberini, who is a restaurateur from New Hampshire. And I was listening, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so funny. We barely talked about your career. We talked about Insa, your Korean barbecue spot here in Gowanus. We happen to be recording today in a studio in Gowanus. And then your second interview was all about Gage & Tollner. There was so much to talk about because you had to delay the opening because of the pandemic.
Sohui Kim:
Right. So did we have that conversation right before there was a pandemic? Was it in March of 2020, or...
Kerry Diamond:
It was after. You were fully open at that point.
Sohui Kim:
Okay, so it was 2021. Right, right, because it was that 14-month lag.
Kerry Diamond:
I realized we have not talked about your early days, your career, how you became a chef. So we're going to talk about that before we talk about your restaurants.
Sohui Kim:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
And we're going to talk about some food stuff, because I realized every now and then, I forget it's a food podcast. Let's start at the beginning. Where were you born?
Sohui Kim:
I was born in Seoul, Korea, a very long time ago, and I lived there until the age of 10, and then our family immigrated to this country, to the Bronx, part of New York, the Bronx, in 1981. And sort of a typical immigration story. A lot of Koreans, I think, immigrated in the '70s and '80s, lots to do with the turmoil, economic, social disturbances, dictatorships, and coups and what have you.
And my father had this great business. He was in construction. He was self-taught. The poor man, he lived through Japanese annexation occupation as a child, and then obviously the Korean War broke out in 1950. I talk a lot about, actually, Korean history when I think about the history of my family, because so much of the 20th century for the tiny little peninsula was so much about trauma.
So anyway, so for personal reasons, my dad was like, okay, maybe this is... Everybody's kind of doing it. A lot of people are doing it. Maybe this is the opportunity for us to go to America and get settled financially. It's sort of that immigrant dream that a lot of people shared. But his intention always was to go back. I have two older sisters and a younger brother, and he wanted us to be educated here, and then we're going to go back.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, the plan was to go back.
Sohui Kim:
The plan was to go back. But, so, we immigrated in 1981, and this is a sad story. My father passed away in a car accident in 1987, so only six years after we came. So it was heartbreaking. So I often-
Kerry Diamond:
You were so young.
Sohui Kim:
I was so young, and it's so funny, dealing with... All of us have traumas and issues. Just looking back, I have a child that's going to college in the fall, and I have had three restaurants now, responsible for two. There's a lot of reflection going on. So I actually have been thinking a lot about my personal history as it relates to my professional career, and a lot of things make sense right, now just in my 50s, it just does.
So anyway, just to go back to the '80s, he passed away and the quick story is that the four of us sort of stuck together. And my parents also, I should preface by saying that unlike a lot of Korean couples and families, they had issues, my mother and my father, and they got a divorce in Korea, which was like an absolute no-no, that never really happened. So there was that issue, immigration, and then my father passing away.
Kerry Diamond:
So wait, they came here...
Sohui Kim:
Separately. So I came here with my father, because they were already divorced in Korea when I was seven years old, and I came here when I was 10. So my father had remarried, and so that was a new unit, but my siblings intact and my maternal grandmother, who we really need to talk about, because she... And talk about the genesis of the reason why I'm in the world of food, I think has to do with my memories and experience and relationship with her, who really pretty much raised me.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, we have so much to talk about.
Sohui Kim:
So much to talk about.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about your grandmother.
Sohui Kim:
So my maternal grandmother, who basically raised me, she was a devout Buddhist, because of a lot of the turmoil and the trauma of the way that she was raised. She had two kids when the Korean War broke out, and she fled with one, the other one she'd lost on the way. So she actually never reconnected with my oldest aunt, and until my father passed away, I think they were all trying to look for her.
But anyway, so she went through a lot. I just have lots of memories of her taking me and my brother, most specifically my younger, brother to retreats. I guess we call it in America retreats, but for her it was just like survival. We lived in Seoul, but then she would take a lot of trips to the country further south. There is a temple that she helped raise up.
And I remember her taking whenever she felt depleted, like we all do, we feel depleted, so we do the things that make us feel whole again. And for her it was nature, it was the temple. It was her relationship to the enlightened and aspiring to be enlightened. And also, when you talk about nature, she foraged a lot. She took a lot of walks, a lot of silence in the temple. And I just have these very vivid memories of going foraging or taking walks with her.
And they had this little backpack that was made out of bamboo and wood, very light. You would walk and bend down and take off a little tree bark and you throw it into the bag, and then you would walk a little, dandelion greens. So much. We were bent over. Not much walking, just a lot of foraging, mushrooms, edible weeds, just the most amazing things, as I look back thinking it's amazing. When you're seven, five, oh my God, you're bored out of your mind. Other than the fact that you're just sort of bouncing around. That freedom was really fun.
And then they would bring it back to their temple kitchen. You know about temple cuisine. No alliums, no garlic, it's too exotic. It stirs up too much of the soul, I guess. So no meat, obviously. So very strictly vegan temple cuisine diet, and to five, seven, eight-year-old, it's super boring. And so we would have, say, bibimbap, it's just like grains and barley and lots of other grains that I didn't prefer when I was little, that I find so interesting and very nutritious.
And then they would have saute these greens and pickle this and do that, and of course the soy sauce and the ganjang and the doenjang and the three mother sauces, gochujang that they would make on the premises. It was beautiful. I couldn't appreciate it then. And I think it's because I didn't appreciate it then that I do revel in the memories whenever it pops into my brain. And she just prepared things very simply, very humbly.
And I do have to say that that has sort of eked into the way that I cook. I never aspired, even when I was working for great chefs and fine dining, the tweezer-type foods, I never really gravitated... I could appreciate it for sure, but there's really nothing like that. You see a plate of food and you recognize and it's comforting. And obviously, the emphasis on seasonality and just respecting nature, take it when nature gives it to you, eat it seasonally.
All that stuff, I feel like has really seeped into the way that I cook and the way that I define myself as a chef, and the way that I talk about cooking to young people now, because I talk to a lot of young people, most of my staff. A lot of the '70s and '80s references just go over their head. But anyway, so there's a lot that I owe to my grandmother.
Kerry Diamond:
It's amazing that you have such good recollections of that. Do you have a good memory?
Sohui Kim:
I do. And as I get older, the short-term stuff, the long-term stuff, it's really, I am going through a lot more. And I do a lot of journaling now. I'm also inspired by a lot of Korean-Americans, and there are so many books out there. Several years ago, when Michelle Zauner came out with the book, “Crying in H Mart,” that really spoke to me. A couple of years before that, “Pachinko” came out. So there's a lot of books that, whether it's food related or not, although inevitably there's always with Korean people, there's always food involved, and obviously specifically with Michelle's book, it targets the way that she experienced her relationship with her mother through food.
And so, I've actually gone back and thought a lot about this stuff. And also my mother too, who actually I didn't really grow up with, but if there is a cooking gene, I do believe I got it from her, She definitely has what you call the touch, and in Korean, son-mat, which is, I think we talked about this years ago, the taste of hand. It's a lovely phrase to say, oh, Kerry has the most wonderful son-mat, like she's got the touch with the food.
Kerry Diamond:
Michelle's book is so beautiful.
Sohui Kim:
It's so beautiful.
Kerry Diamond:
It's one of my favorite memoirs of the past few years.
Sohui Kim:
I agree. And she's so young. She's so talented. She's an absolutely amazing musician.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you see her on the recent tour?
Sohui Kim:
I have not, but she was so lovely. My daughter was reading her book in English class this year, and she said, "Mom, don't you know Michelle?" And I was like, "I do," because Michelle stopped at Insa and did a little, not cooking demo, but a little reading, and we did a little cook-along to present that reading with Michelle. So we developed a relationship there, and she gave me a copy of her book and I gave her a copy of my book, “Korean Home Cooking,” and she said, "Oh, unnie," which means older sister, "I already have this book." So we really connected and I thought she was super sweet. It's been wonderful to see her just take off. I hope she does more writing. It really spoke to me and a lot of other people of my generation, younger generation.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a beautiful book. Go buy it from your favorite independent bookstore. I just finished Youngmi Mayer's book, “I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying,” and it's all about her fascinating journey. She was one of the co-founders of Mission Chinese Food. She talks all about her family's incredible story. And she's a stand-up comedian now, which is amazing. She started that later in life. And I saw her do stand-up at Padma Lakshmi's stand-up benefit at the Bell House.
Sohui Kim:
Oh, cool.
Kerry Diamond:
Which, again, not too far from where we're recording right now. I don't think I've ever laughed as hard as during Youngmi's set.
Sohui Kim:
Well, the book is on my list, so I can't wait to read it.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
Sohui Kim:
Cherry Bombe's next Jubilee conference is taking place in Los Angeles on Sunday, September 28th. If you're new to Jubilee, it's our conference series that's all about connection, community, and celebrating the creatives who make the world of food and drinks so vibrant. Our very first Jubilee took place in New York City in 2014, and it's grown into an amazing gathering that brings together incredible people year after year. All the details are at cherrybombe.com, and the link is in our show notes. If you're a Bombesquad member, be sure to use your special member pricing when purchasing a ticket.
Kerry Diamond:
So you leave at the age of 10.
Sohui Kim:
Mm-hmm.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a tough age to make such a big move.
Sohui Kim:
That is. It's interesting. I'm talking a lot. I was just in L.A. for a friend's wedding, and my mother is resting there in L.A. because my father, siblings, my grandmother, we moved to New York and my mother was in L.A., and recently I was there, and my children, who are teenagers. And you know how teenagers, they kind of don't know you as a person, they just know you as mom, and it's now starting to click. They're starting to ask questions about me, my life, and obviously when we're putting flowers down to pay respects, I was telling stories about my mother.
And it was, it was really heartbreaking that they were divorced and we were starting this new life in the Bronx and she was in L.A. It was a little traumatic. There was a lot missing. And I did get to know her once I grew up and I pursued that relationship just a little bit. She did the best that she could. We did have an okay relationship, mother-daughter, on a regular day. It's a tough relationship. I really did try to get to know her and her reasons for it. And without getting too personal, there was a lot of us connecting through food. When I opened the Good Fork in 2006, she came over and she told me I was doing everything wrong with the kimchi and stuff like that. So she showed me how.
Kerry Diamond:
We say, the Good Fork was your restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah, the Good Fork. Yeah. Established 2006. Ben and I don't own it anymore, but it still survives as the Good Fork pub, which is beautiful. Still in the same location in Red Hook. She would come and visit, short visits to show me how to make kimchi her way. And I certainly did. I think that really was important for me in my 20s to reconnect with her so that I could reconnect with the food. I mean, the food that I was raised with.
I started cooking a little later than most people. I sort of chased my father's dream of me going to all these Ivy League schools and becoming a lawyer, like all... This is very unoriginal, like a lot...
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, did you go to law school?
Sohui Kim:
I almost did. I was on track to. I had a political science degree from Barnard, Columbia University. I started at Bowdoin. So I was very academically driven, because I felt like that's what I had to do. And especially when you're chasing your deceased dear father's dream, you're like, okay, this is what I have to do. This is part of that sort of filial piety, like you just have to. It's just psychologically very heavy, and it took me sort of years to bust out of that mold. And I think a lot of people who, especially when they immigrate or Korean-American, second generation, of a different culture, it's hard, that whole assimilation, like, who am I? What should I do when the pressure is so high from your community, especially from your parents.
So there was a good amount of me chasing the dream of becoming this white-collar professional, a respectable lawyer. And I felt like I sort of fought that by using food as the excuse. Instead of filling out the law school applications, I would just have dinner parties. I'm like, I'll do that on Sunday. It's Friday, so I'm just going to call my people and my friends, and I read this in a cookbook or something. I fancy myself a wonderful cook at home, because no one cooked. None of my friends knew how to cook.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you cooking in your dorm, or was this after?
Sohui Kim:
I was cooking in my dorm. I think I've said this many times before. The first cookbook, way before, I wanted to write a cookbook called 101 Ways with Ramen, because that's all I had. Not much money at all in college, and you survived, and I could take a packet of ramen and do some wonderful things with it.
Kerry Diamond:
That would probably be a best-selling book.
Sohui Kim:
I think there's others out there.
Kerry Diamond:
Has that stopped anyone from writing a cookbook?
Sohui Kim:
No, that hasn't. But anyway, cooking a lot of ramen, and then all those trips to L.A. to reconnect with my mom. It was a lot about Korean food. But still sort of kept it dormant, like, okay, maybe I'm not very good at Korean cooking. Maybe that connection wasn't 100%. But I still love cooking. In my 20s, procrastinating filling out law school applications, I made a lot of really good dinners, I have to say. A lot of my friends would say, "Oh my God, Sohui, so this is so good. Girl, you should open a restaurant," or whatever. A lot of praise like that. But I knew better, because restaurants are hard, and I had some friends...
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you knew better for a little while.
Sohui Kim:
I knew better for a little while. So I was like, you know what, I'm actually going to go to a culinary school. So this thing clicked and I was like, whose dream am I chasing? I really don't want to be a lawyer. I really want to play with food. I think I want to be a caterer. I think that I have a good business sense and I think that I could, if I have a degree in something culinary, then maybe I could do this, pursue this career as a caterer.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, I have to stop you for a second.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Had you worked anywhere else?
Sohui Kim:
Nope.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have part-time jobs and stuff?
Sohui Kim:
Well, the real job that I had right out of graduating university is I worked for a small architectural publishing company called ADA, Adita Global Architecture. And I had this wonderful boss, her name is Kazumi, and she would take me to these fantastic restaurants that I couldn't afford to eat. She took me to Teddy's... These are all restaurants from the '80s, like Teddy's Odeon, which is still around, which was super fancy and super popular and you couldn't really get in. That was a place to be in Tribeca. Omen.
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to guess Omen.
Sohui Kim:
Yes. So she really opened my eyes to...
Kerry Diamond:
Omen is still around.
Sohui Kim:
Omen is still around, you're right.
Kerry Diamond:
Which is amazing.
Sohui Kim:
For me it was just mind-blowing, because for me it was just ramen at 7:00 with some friends. This is right after university, so it was before I started playing around with food. But that's where it all sort of sparked, like, oh, wow, there's this amazing world, this beautiful city filled with all this food that I don't know how to make, but that I could barely explore because I was so poor. I felt like if I could learn this, I could do pretty okay.
Kerry Diamond:
I worked down the block from Omen at Spring Street Books.
Sohui Kim:
You did?
Kerry Diamond:
In Soho, and I remember walking past it a million times. I was so intimidated, and definitely could not have afforded to eat there. So you never worked in a restaurant?
Sohui Kim:
I never had worked in a restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
You decide you're going to become a caterer, having never worked in a restaurant or done catering?
Sohui Kim:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Sohui Kim:
I was 24, 25 when I was like, maybe food is it, and so I started exploring that just a little bit, still not throwing out the idea of becoming a lawyer. After work, I was like, maybe I need some experience, some restaurant experience. Well, I couldn't get a job as a cook anywhere, because back then, even though they paid you so terribly, it was hard to get in the door if you didn't have any experience. So what I did was, I answered an ad at Penang restaurant. Do you remember that chain? And the one on Spring Street was like the hot place. And I walked in-
Kerry Diamond:
Because it was right next door to the bookstore.
Sohui Kim:
That's right. Yeah, that's right, it was. And I walked in, I was like, "Hi, I just need a job, like a part-time job. I'll do anything. Wash dishes." And the general manager sort of looked me up and down and was like, "Well, we do need a coat check girl." So I was the coat check hostess with the mostest at Penang Restaurant for about nine months.
Kerry Diamond:
What year was that? Do you remember?
Sohui Kim:
This must've been like, I want to say it probably was 1994.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I was gone already from the bookstore. Okay. I was like, that would've been so funny if we worked right next door to each other and didn't know it.
Sohui Kim:
Well, it was hard. Front of the house.
Kerry Diamond:
Being a coat check girl is harder than it looks because you're so responsible for everyone's stuff.
Sohui Kim:
Exactly. And not just that, the layout of most restaurants in the city is just harrowing. I had to go two flights downstairs, over barrels of beer and boxes of things, and it was impossible, that job. But I did enjoy it for the social aspect of it. And I got to see how a restaurant works, how a busy restaurant works, and having that job really cemented the fact that I really wanted to learn how to cook properly.
So a couple more years later, I gave notice, I got a little severance package from that job, and I put it towards culinary school. And I went to ICE, which back then it was called Peter Combs. That's how long ago it was that I went to that school. I really loved it. I really loved playing with food officially, knowing the anatomy of fish, ingredients, seasonal vegetables. There was a lot of information packed in, and I was just so eager and so hungry for it, and I was like, maybe this is the right way. I started even writing a little business proposal for a catering company.
A part of the requirement for the culinary degree is that you do like 208 hours of externship somewhere, and I chose Blue Hill. Very wisely, I chose Blue Hill. I feel very lucky about that. It had just opened. So then, this was now 2000, 2001. So early that it was still Dan Barber and Michael Anthony as co-chefs. And I walked in, all dudes. But I loved the vibe of it. You've been there. It still exists. They also branched and opened up the giant place, the stone...
Kerry Diamond:
So it was before they...
Sohui Kim:
Mm-hmm. And I really hit it off with Michael, and Dan was great, and the staff, very intense. And it was really my first look-see into the kitchen of a fine dining institution. I got bit. I just loved the atmosphere. I loved the intensity. I loved the discipline, and I just loved all the amazing things that they were doing with seasonal produce, all kinds of techniques mushed together, French, Asian ingredients. I think that they were sort of on the forefront of utilizing what we now know as global pantry, because Michael had worked in Japan. So I really loved the vibe there. And then they asked me to be a part of the opening team as garde manger. Michael and I are still friends to this day.
Kerry Diamond:
Did he just open the restaurants...
Sohui Kim:
At the Waldorf Astoria.
Kerry Diamond:
At the Waldorf Astoria? Oh my gosh. What a big job.
Sohui Kim:
Totally. There's actually an article that I haven't read today, how he worked six months for his Waldorf salad. I believe that.
Kerry Diamond:
Pressure.
Sohui Kim:
I learned a lot. I learned a great deal. As line cooks and interns, we saw the blueprint for the Stone Barn, and oh my God, how amazing to be a part of that. But I just couldn't fathom doing the reverse commute to Tarrytown. So I said, "Hey, I want to work in fine dining. I want to work in the city." And so Michael connected me to Anita Lowe. At the time, I also had a part-time job at Savoy with Peter Hoffman. I felt like I was in the cool, hip places. Looking back now, I was like, wow, how did I get so lucky to get my foot in the door in those places? And then once I started line cooking, working with Anita...
Kerry Diamond:
Tell folks a little bit about Anita, because she's kept a bit of a low profile over the past few years.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah. Her ears must always be itching because I talk about her quite a bit. She really was a true influence on me. I didn't know it at the time, but just looking back, and as I mentor young cooks, I really think about that time a lot. She wasn't like a helicopter boss parenting type. She wouldn't micromanage what I was doing. But because she's so cool and collected and she's on the quiet side, what she didn't say was louder than what she said. You know what I mean? So when she saw me prep, she would say, "Okay, I see what you're doing. Maybe you should try to do it this way." And just kind of walk away. It was such a small kitchen. It was, at the time, all female, and she was very much about supporting, because there were so few of us back then.
Kerry Diamond:
She was a real trailblazer chef.
Sohui Kim:
She was a real trailblazer.
Kerry Diamond:
In New York, and one of the first well-known female chefs in New York City.
Sohui Kim:
Absolutely. She sort of came up quietly, and that's what I love about her. And even when she found her fame and when she got the Michelin Star, when she got Food & Wine’s best chef, when she got all the accolades, and she was always the only female chef, to be an Asian chef to boot. And for me, that was everything, because her menu spoke so loud of her experience and herself as a person, as a cook, what's important, what's not.
So a lot of her sensibilities, I was just like a sponge. I was like, just absorb all of this. And I tell this story, I've said this to her many times that we've connected since. I do thank her. There was one moment, it was a really busy night. We did tasting menus there, and it was fancy, with the white tablecloth, the front of the house, hospitality was true magic. And we turned out a lot of beautiful food.
Kerry Diamond:
This was Annisa?
Sohui Kim:
This was Annisa. Turning out a lot of beautiful food, and I was exhausted, and at one point she turns to me towards the end and she goes, "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?" No chefs really asked you what do you want to do, because you were just so busy in the moment. "What do you want to do with this?" And I was like, "I don't know. I don't know, chef. Something. I don't know. I sometimes fancy myself, maybe I'll open my own place like you." And she said, she kind of nodded her head and she was like, "Hmm." Goes, "You know what? I think you got it." And I was like, "What?" That was such a great boost of confidence, and the fact that she was recognizing what I was doing.
Line cooking, first of all, let's just talk about that for a minute. It really has a different set of skills than... I think you could be a wonderful chef of a restaurant have great line cooks, young line cooks, train them. But to do it yourself, you have to be an athlete. And obviously, in order to be a great chef, you have to know how to be in the trenches and process the food. So you're given, say, four to six dishes and you're producing it over and over and over and over again in 95-degree heat. Lots of pressure. It has to be all timing. So I liken it to being an athlete, running a marathon and doing sprints and stuff like that.
There's a line cooking skill and there's also to be the head chef, how to create a menu, how to mentor, how to create a vision and to share that vision with your team. That's another skill set. But just as a line cook, as we say, throwing pans around, she was like, "Okay, well, you kind of got it. I see you."
Kerry Diamond:
What do you think she saw in you?
Sohui Kim:
I think she saw the ambition, and I think that she saw my passion for food. Now, having the career that I have, I think a lot of people go into this for various reasons. Some people just want to be famous. Some people just want to have the glory and just the bragging rights to say, “This is my restaurant.” Various reasons. Some people just get bored of their jobs and they find chefing and owning a restaurant really exotic. So various, various different reasons.
And I think there's some people who just have a calling. And this, again, I go back to my grandmother. She had this calling spiritually to be closer to Buddha, to live her life in a certain way. It was a calling. And I see a lot of chefs that just can't do anything else. This is what they have to do. And I think maybe she saw a little bit of that. And I showed up for work every day. I was like that good, quintessentially great line cook that showed up, did the job, asked questions. And I think it's the curiosity part that she was like, oh, okay, maybe she will go on and do something with it.
When she came to the Good Fork, I think I told you this story, she was like, "oh, I told you not to do it. It's going to be a total pain in the butt. But congratulations, kid. You did it. It's wonderful." So that means a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
You didn't pursue the fine dining path?
Sohui Kim:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
You opened a very neighborhood restaurant in the Good Fork.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah, and again, that goes back to memories of foraging, memories of the family table, the dinner. Granted, it was purely Korean cuisine, but there is something about that. The techniques of fine dining, using ISI things and smoke and all that stuff, I appreciate, I do. I do think it's theater.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, what's ISI?
Sohui Kim:
It's one of those machines that you put sauce into and it makes foam.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't have one at home.
Sohui Kim:
So all, like the xanthan gum, like the chemistries. After a while, it's just chemistry. I liken it to art. There's some paintings that speak to you right away and there's some paintings you just have to look at and sort of analyze. And I find that we have that diversity in the culinary world. Some restaurants, yeah, it's the work of art.
Kerry Diamond:
So you opened the Good Fork with Ben, your husband.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Did it take off right away?
Sohui Kim:
It took off too fast, honestly. The plan was written in the back of a napkin, and I said to Ben, "Listen, let's just do this. We have this lease. It's very inexpensive. Let's just try for a little while." Because you know...
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have to raise money?
Sohui Kim:
We raised money within our family. Three people gave money. His parents, his uncle, and I borrowed a little bit from my sister. And I'm going to say the number, it took $100,000 to open that restaurant, which was a crazy little amount. Why? Because my husband and partner is beautifully gifted. He's a wonderful woodworker. He's not an architect by trade, but he definitely is a designer, and he's designed all of our restaurants.
Because of his talent, we were able to put up the restaurant pretty quickly. But we didn't know what the heck we're doing. And I said to him, "Okay, I know you're tired." This was a month in. "I know you're tired. Let's just, a couple more months, see what happens, and then we could just close the door, sell the lease, and then I'll go get a job. I'm sure I could get another sous chef job somewhere and then we'll just keep going on." And then he could go back to building beautiful cabinetry and pursuing acting, which he was doing at the time.
And then, I don't know, four or five weeks in, Peter Meehan comes from New York Times and we are featured in 25 & Under. Really nice review. Even, I know him now, but even he was like, "All right, it's a great place and she's great with this and the place is wonderful, and the architecture of it is beautiful, but I don't know if they're going to keep it all together." I think that was one of the lines.
He encapsulated the spirit of the place. Like, yes, two knuckleheads, a cook and a carpenter, thinking that they could open a restaurant, but the hospitality part was really, he got it. And we had wonderful people as servers, and just trying to figure it all out. And the fact that the place still exists, you could go there and really admire the beautiful, the ceiling that Ben created. It's really lovely, cozy. Actually, the New Yorker came a couple months after that and described the interior of the Good Fork as "inside of a Stradivarius." Not just a regular violin, but a Stradivarius, nonetheless.
So it was a boom. And when you get written up, back then, now, not so much I don't think. But back in those days, if you were written up in 25 Under or just anywhere in New York Times, New Yorker, GQ came. But we got a lot of amazing press that just came to us naturally.
Kerry Diamond:
The food media had so much power back then.
Sohui Kim:
They really did. They really did. To make or break, for good or bad. I'm glad that it's equalized just a little bit, but there was a lot of power. And with that power, people come. So instead of serving, say, 50 to 60 covers, we were doubled. So we were doing over 100 covers. We, meaning me and a dishwasher and a cook. I had to learn how to be a boss from that moment on, as soon as it became busy. So then that really is what started our education as chef, restaurateurs.
Kerry Diamond:
Crash course.
Sohui Kim:
Crash course.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you have kids? So we had, Jasper was born in 2008. I did “Throwdown with Bobby Flay.” Because that's another thing that Anita Lowe was like, "Listen, if the media calls, you just have to do it." And so Food TV Network called. The whole ruse is that they don't tell you that it's “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” back then. So they say, "Oh, we want to feature you in Food TV Network, and featuring some of your dishes." And then you have to create a space. They come, and then Bobby just comes to the door.
So you had no idea you were going to be on that show?
Sohui Kim:
I had no idea. But my brother, who was an avid food TV buff back then, he watched all the shows, and he was like, "Dude, that totally sounds like a throwdown, man." I was like, "What's a throwdown?" I was like, "Who's Bobby Flay?" You know what I mean? I was so entrenched in just cooking. I had no time to watch those shows. But yeah, around that time, early 2000s is when food TV Network really took off and all those celebrity chefs just really cemented their place in the fame of it all. So we did that, and I remember Jasper was just born, so that was early 2009. Anyway, it's sort of a blur, but two years after.
Kerry Diamond:
So you're a new mom, a restaurateur, chef, all those things.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah. It was nuts. It was nuts.
Kerry Diamond:
And you did beat Bobby.
Sohui Kim:
And I beat his butt.
Kerry Diamond:
What did you make?
Sohui Kim:
Dumplings. And then after that, I couldn't take the darn things off the menu. So the Good Fork Pub, the way that I designed the menu was very globetrotting, and I love to use that word instead of fusion. And back then, it was a little bit crazy that I offered hybrid dumplings. It was a mix of gyoza, Chinese pork and chive, and Korean mandu, and I was like the wrappers thin, but I like meaty filling. And so I created the thing as a filler, like one special or something like that, and then people really loved it.
Kerry Diamond:
I would always get that, and the steak and kimchi.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah, steak and eggs, Korean style. If I had to pick three signature dishes out of the Good Fork would be those three. It's steak and eggs Korean style, the dumplings. Oh, and the third one is roasted chicken with fermented soybean butter sauce. A little trick that I learned from Anita. For the most part, those are the dishes that sold, but then I also did seasonal pastas. I learned how to make pasta from Anne Burrell, may she rest in peace. Worked for the Italy Group for a little while, and Cesare Casella.
Kerry Diamond:
Cesare.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I lived around the corner from Beppe.
Sohui Kim:
Beppe. Yeah, and so I actually was not a line cook for him, but I worked on his cookbooks and recipe tested probably 200 recipes for him.
Kerry Diamond:
My favorite thing he ever made was the salad... Was it Pontormo? It was a salad with eggs and bacon.
Sohui Kim:
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And the greens were all wilted, but it was a salad. It was one of the best. I still think about that all the time, and I've tried to replicate it at home.
Sohui Kim:
Also, he did the Tuscan Cowboy pork ribs. That was really popular.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't remember those.
Sohui Kim:
Lots of French fries with herbs.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, the French fries.
Sohui Kim:
And then him walking around. He still does it. He still walks around with a bouquet of herbs in his pocket.
Kerry Diamond:
Of the chef's coat. It's very sweet.
Sohui Kim:
So I learned a lot from Cesare, and so obviously, I just was trying to fuse everything that I knew how to make and be proud of. And honestly, this whole notion of chefs creating dishes for themselves initially, things that we are interested in, that we are inspired by, that we want to eat, was the ethos for that creation. And it was all over the place. You had dumplings, wild boar ragout, homemade pappardelle, duck confit, crudo. I mean, it was just so fun. It was just so fun to be able to...
And I knew that there was a big jump from being a line cook, sous chefs. I kind of teetered there, and I was like, how do you get an executive chef job? Then we could talk about the doors not readily being open at that time, perhaps even still now, to the higher power of being an executive chef at an independent restaurant or anywhere. The glass ceiling thing was for sure there. So I was like, I just have to do this. Anita did it. She opened her own place, so that was also an inspiration. I was like, "I think, Ben, we need to just go off and do this ourselves."
So it was put together very, very loosely, kind of no real direction other than we love to eat, we love to cook, we love to entertain. Which I think is the right formula, honestly. Ben and I say this all the time, if we had known what we know now, we would have never have opened the Good Fork. So there is a lot for the young people and their energy and listening to the passion and their creative vision, just taking a leap and just going for it. And that's what we did.
And because, as you say, we opened, lots of things happened. We had two kids, boom, boom, back to back. And I was like, okay, we just need a breather. This is a lot right now. And just to figure out the family situation, the direction of the Good Fork. And we had a great crew. The “Good Fork Cookbook” actually writes the history of all of us and how we got started, and I love that we were so lucky to have so many people be a part of that journey. A lot of, I call them my kids, because they're all off doing wonderful things. And obviously, we couldn't have done it without that crew, the cooks and the servers, the dishwashers, and it was a small, tight-knit family.
And then years later, Ben and I, I guess, the kids were getting a little older, got the itch a little bit for the same... And people were coming up to us about the second project.
Kerry Diamond:
When you open a restaurant, all people do is ask you when you're opening another one.
Sohui Kim:
Totally, totally. And I knew, and the answer back then was very much like, "We have to just take it easy a little bit. Just focus on this, focus on our babies and focus on the baby that is the Good Fork." And then of course, as you know, Insa was born in 2015. Superstorm Sandy in Red Hook was a real turning point. People just showed up, and we're like, maybe this is it. We're under. Do we reopen? And the community really showed up and helped us reopen.
That was like, okay, a wake-up call, the next phase moment where, what are we really doing with this? And out of that experience, the “Good Fork Cookbook” came out, and then several years later in 2015, we opened Insa. So we're like, yeah, maybe we're kind of good at this. Maybe we are good at creating a space, that third space that people really need in this city, for community, good food, and a good place to work.
Kerry Diamond:
You've had such an interesting career, and it's such a part of the New York food scene, the history of the New York food scene, but you've also entered this sort of new phase of your career, where you said you are looking back a little bit, and you're thinking more about being a mentor and a teacher. And you've obviously had so many mentors and teachers. Just tell me about where your head's at right now and what you're thinking about your next phase.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah, that's a great question. In order to look forward, you have to look back. I'm super proud. I really am very lucky, as sort of the unintentional restaurateur, chef. Kind of stumbled into it, found success largely because of the recipe of partnering up with my friend, my buddy, my baby daddy, my partner, my husband, Ben Schneider. He and I really have, we look back and we're like, wow, this is pretty awesome. Where do we go from here? We take care of Insa, we take care of Gage. And I know our last podcast was all about Gage.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes, I'm going to tell people, go back and listen to that other episode. We'll put a link in the show notes, so you can learn all about Gage & Tollner. Which I saw on OpenTable is listed as an icon.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah, we're an icon.
Kerry Diamond:
Impressive.
Sohui Kim:
Isn't that cool?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. You're part of that Visa Dining Collection.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah, it's really exciting. People are still coming because it's a storied, historic landmark place. People are coming for the great food. People are coming for the amazing service, and people also coming for our cute little Sunken Harbor club that's upstairs. We're four years in, but still very exciting time. And obviously as operators, we're learning more and more, and we're 105 people strong at Gage & Tollner.
So it's like, I'm never done, right? I am still learning how to manage bigger set of people, how to mentor managers. I truly do really love my job, but there is a lot that is owed to looking back and sort of thinking about my dad, my grandmother, my mother, the immigrant experience, just the education of a cook, of a restaurateur. I'm really blessed. I'm really blessed. There's a lot of looking back and saying, “Wow, I can't believe I made it through that, and I can't believe I was so lucky to be there, to be a part of that.”
Kerry Diamond:
I always hated the question, “What advice would you give your younger self?” Because I always thought, my younger self, I would never have taken the advice that someone gave me.
Sohui Kim:
No. Not at all.
Kerry Diamond:
But now I do look at it a little differently, because things don't have to be as hard.
Sohui Kim:
No,
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so happy that there's less gatekeeping today, and more sharing and more mentorship. It's happening. What do you wish you knew when you were starting out?
Sohui Kim:
I wish I knew more about myself. I wish I knew more about the human brain, honestly, because so much of what we do is, this specific industry, the hospitality industry, it really is, before it's a business of food, it's really a business of people. And I wish that I had a bit more patience. A lot of these things... It's a great question, Kerry. I think about it as I have learned to be a good mom, hopefully, and the way that I teach my children. My daughter's 17, she's amazing. She doesn't really listen to my advice, and she shouldn't, really. She has to forge her path. But yeah, my younger self, if I could just tell Sohui of 25, just to be a little bit more patient. Take breaths, deep breaths, and just cool down a little bit in the walk-in, just a little. Just take a little extra minute for yourself. Self care, I think, is important.
Kerry Diamond:
That wasn't even a term when we were that age.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah, no. Yeah, to take care just of yourself, your body, your mind, so that you could focus on your passion and whatever goals you have. But other than that, knowing that Sohui of yesteryear would not listen to me, just to hang in there, just to keep believing.
Kerry Diamond:
That's good advice for all of you, regardless of what age or stage you are at. Final question. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Sohui Kim:
Wow, that's very... So, it's evolved. Today, last year... Next year, it will be Edna Lewis, definitely. Her spirit is there at Gage & Tollner. I don't know if a lot of the listeners know, she was the executive chef at Gage & Tollner from 1988 to 1992. I've been doing a lot of cross-promotional collaboration with people who are exploring her life, writing books, films.
Kerry Diamond:
Like Deb Freeman.
Sohui Kim:
Like Deb Freeman.
Kerry Diamond:
Who just won an Emmy. Congratulations, Deb.
Sohui Kim:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
She was also on the podcast. We'll put the link in the show notes.
Sohui Kim:
Oh, good. Excellent. I was next to her. I made some biscuits for her screening at the platform, James Weir Foundation, and I sat next to her and I saw her cry, because it was the first time that she had seen it in totality. And I squeezed her hand and I'm just so proud of her and just such a labor of love. And there is so much about her that I found out through that film. I have all of her cookbooks. I'm a total nerd. I'm a total fan. If I could have a little glass of sherry or just dinner, whatever, a smoke with her. I don't smoke, but you know what I mean? Just that coolness that I imagine her, the way that she carried herself as a chef, after her shift of making delicious food and lots of great pies, walking around that gorgeous dining room. If we could just sit down and have a conversation, there would be many, many, many questions that I would ask her.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, maybe one day you'll get the answers. When I come to Gage & Tollner, I think about her, because it's the original bar. And I imagine her, she was so tall and striking. I imagine her leaning on the bar and just kind of looking at everybody. But I do know she was kind of shy.
Sohui Kim:
She was very shy, I'm told.
Kerry Diamond:
And too shy to come to the dining room.
Sohui Kim:
Yeah. But proud, but not, like maybe a social introvert. Because she had to be the face of it. And the owner back then, Peter Ashkenazi, definitely wanted her to be the face of Gage & Tollner. So there's a lot of press clippings and articles. I really do love looking at her old archive of stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Sohui Kim:
She was amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, everybody go visit Gage & Tollner. Go visit Insa, sing some karaoke, which I haven't done since I sang it at Insa last time.
Sohui Kim:
We have to do it together.
Kerry Diamond:
We should.
Sohui Kim:
We have to do that.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, maybe not. I don't know. My karaoke days might be over. Anyway, Sohui, you really are a tremendous human being, and I can't thank you enough. We had such a good time with you up at Wildflower Farms.
Sohui Kim:
That was super fun. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
And you'll have to come back, because I feel like we barely scratched the surface.
Sohui Kim:
I know. I just love talking to you. Thanks for inviting me.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you.
Sohui Kim:
That's so sweet.
Kerry Diamond:
Enjoy the end of the summer.
Sohui Kim:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Sohui for stopping by. If you want to listen to our past episodes with Sohui or our episode with Nina Williams-Mbengue, the niece of Edna Lewis, the links are in our show notes. And special thanks to Visa and OpenTable. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Special thanks to Good Studio in Brooklyn and The Studio Portland in Maine. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our talent guru is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.