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Victoria Burrows

Korean-American chef Edward Lee is a difficult man to pin down.
His recent work schedule sees him repeatedly travel to South Korea and back home again to the US to oversee his five restaurants and non-profit initiatives.
He recently guest-cooked at the Kentucky Derby, the annual horse race that 25 years ago helped spark his love for all things American South and diverted his life from New York to Louisville, in the US state of Kentucky.
He also fit in a visit to Hong Kong, where he cooked at Club Batard for the Art Basel art fair, and fulfilled a busy roster of other commitments expected of international celebrity chefs today.
Lee has long been a well-known culinary figure in the US, appearing in television shows like The Mind of a Chef, Iron Chef America and Top Chef. He has also won two James Beard awards: for his book Buttermilk Graffiti in 2019, and for his LEE Initiative – which is dedicated to diversity and equality in the restaurant industry – in 2024.

But it was his appearance in last year’s Korean reality television show Culinary Class Wars, which topped the Netflix foreign-language (non-English) charts consecutively for three weeks, that made him an even bigger star in Asia.
The 53-year-old chef may not have taken home the top prize – he was runner-up – but he won viewers’ hearts with his supportive attitude towards his fellow contestants, and the humility and emotional vulnerability he displayed as he described feeling increasingly close to his Korean heritage as the show progressed.
“Filming for the show was a very difficult experience since I had a language barrier that I was working with, and also flying back and forth from the States. But overall, being there with all the other Korean chefs was a special experience and one that I’ll never forget,” he says.
“I’ve changed as a chef and as a person. To be connected in a real way to my roots and the food of my heritage has made me want to explore Korean food even more deeply. I’m now going to Korea often, so it brings me more opportunities to experience versions of Korean food I’ve not known before.”

Lee was born in Brooklyn to Korean parents who immigrated to New York in 1971. While Korean culture permeated his childhood, he only visited South Korea for the first time at the age of 16. In his early years, he struggled with balancing the two competing identities. His Korean language skills remain elementary.
Today, he is on a mission to share what he has learned in Korea with diners back in the US. While he acknowledges that Korean food is far better known around the world than in years past, he is irked by the limited repertoire of dishes available in Western countries.
“It’s wonderful and I’m so glad to see Korean food trending in places like Paris and Australia, and the middle of America. But outside Korea, the cuisine is popular for barbecue. That’s only one aspect of Korean food,” he says.
“I want to show what other great cuisines come from Korea that could also be popular worldwide – seafood, for example, and the amazing tradition of Korean noodles, which is so diverse and unique.
“I’ve become dedicated to exploring and cooking, and showing the other brilliant sides of Korean food to a Western audience.”

Lee’s restaurants reflect the awakening of his Korean identity and a deepening appreciation of Korean cuisine.
He opened his first restaurant, a Korean barbecue spot in Manhattan, in 1996. The restaurant specialised in kalbi: marinated grilled beef short ribs, usually sliced thinly across the bone.
When that failed in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, he took a consolatory trip across America.
One of his stops was Louisville to watch the Kentucky Derby. There, he fell in love with Southern culture and cooking. In 2002, he moved to Louisville and began working at 610 Magnolia with former chef and owner Eddie Garber. Just over a year later, Lee took over the restaurant.
The elegantly rustic dining room remains a hotspot today, attracting diners with its Southern dishes accented with Korean and international touches, such as Iberico pork with kale, kimchi and haricot verts, and smoked lamb carpaccio with five spice, jujube, pomegranate and sorrel.

In 2015, Lee opened Succotash in Maryland, which extended his experimentation with blending Southern and Korean cuisines. He came up with dishes such as dirty fried chicken – chicken legs and thighs with spicy gochujang honey, blue cheese and pickles – and roasted salmon with strawberry-tamarind glaze, miso radishes and crispy shallots.
The same year he started his LEE (Let’s Empower Employment) Initiative, which is “an attempt to see changes for the better in the restaurant industry I love so much, but acknowledge that we need to do better.”
The non-profit organisation promotes diversity, equity and inclusion in the restaurant industry. During the Covid-19 pandemic it launched the Restaurant Workers Relief Programme, providing meals and resources to out-of-work hospitality professionals across the country.
While Lee is increasingly embracing Korean cooking, he says his American self is still alive and well.
“There’s definitely a progression from the food of the American South that I explored for most of my 30s to becoming more rooted in Korean food in my 40s,” he says.
“However, I feel like nothing that I do ever leaves me, so I incorporate the knowledge of Southern food into the things I even cook now. I’m not a traditionalist and would never call myself a traditional chef when it comes to Korean or Southern food. So I keep building my knowledge, and all of it somehow works from a cuisine standpoint.”

The cooking is just one aspect of the American South that has proved a lifelong love for Lee. It is also where he met his wife and where he fell head over heels for a particularly spirited mistress: bourbon.
He published his love letter to American whiskey last year in the form of Bourbon Land, a collection of bourbon-inspired recipes interspersed with interviews with industry figures such as Jim Beam master distiller Fred Noe, and chapters on the history and making of the spirit.
Recipes include dishes such as roasted fennel and bourbon-burnt orange salad, brown rice, spelt and bourbon risotto, pork meatballs in bourbon-gochujang coconut broth, and bourbon cherry ice cream sandwiches – which Lee writes in the book will be “the cutest ice cream sandwiches you’ll ever make”. There are also recipes for bourbon-based cocktails, including the Boulevardier and a Lapsang Souchong Manhattan.
He describes his relationship with bourbon as “long and layered”.
“In college, I drank it to be cool, but I could not afford the good stuff. When I moved to Louisville, I was introduced to an entire culture and lifestyle around bourbon, which changed how I looked at it. I started to drink single-barrel and aged bourbons. I met the master distillers and cooked with bourbon.
“My friendships with bourbon critics and writers have deepened my knowledge, but at the same time, I’m still an enthusiast who drinks every bourbon with a childlike fervour. The more I learned about bourbon, the more I was consumed by it.”

Despite his passion, he has only a small collection of vintage bourbon – he does not believe in saving it.
“Good bottles are meant to be shared. I do have a few very old bottles, like an Echo Spring from 1917, and some bottles from the ’50s. Those I keep. Everything else I drink,” he says.
With the management of his restaurants and non-profit endeavours, in addition to his television appearances, Lee says that he does not “look too far ahead of the next few months”, especially as his schedule has become so overwhelmed with travel to Asia.
He will be cooking at private events in Macau and Hong Kong again in the coming months. He says he is excited about revisiting Hong Kong and exploring more.
For fans hoping he will open a restaurant in Hong Kong, Korea or elsewhere on the continent, he remains guarded: “I cannot say at the moment, but check back with me in a few months.”
For the time being, he says, he is doing what he does best.
“I’m having fun and feeling so enriched in my career. I want to keep pushing and doing what I love most, which is to travel, explore and cook.”


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Lee on Netflix’s cooking contest show Culinary Class Wars. Photo: courtesy of Netflix

Lee won viewers’ hearts on Culinary Class Wars with his supportive attitude towards his fellow contestants and his humility and emotional vulnerability. Photo: Facebook/Chef Edward Lee

Iberico pork with kale, kimchi and haricot verts at Lee’s 610 Magnolia. Photo: Victoria Burrows

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The vast whiskey collection at 610 Magnolia. Photo: Victoria Burrows

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Lifestyle

Food & Drink

Korean-American chef Edward Lee is irked at how Korean food equals barbecue in Western countries and intends to show that it’s so much more


Korean-American chef Edward Lee is irked at how Korean food equals barbecue in Western countries and intends to show that it’s so much more.


Netflix

Fame and celebrity

Why Culinary Class Wars favourite Edward Lee wants people to better understand Korean food

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Korean-American chef Edward Lee is irked at how Korean food equals barbecue in Western countries and intends to show that it’s so much more

Korean-American chef Edward Lee is irked at how Korean food equals barbecue in Western countries and intends to show that it’s so much more