Chef Edward Lee reflects on 'Culinary Class Wars', identity and his next chapter

Korean American chef Edward Lee's claim to fame had as much to do with his story as his delicious dishes: a native New Yorker travels to Louisville, Ky., and upon first bites, instantly falls in love with collard greens and fried chicken.

Lee went all in on Southern comfort food, incorporating Korean ingredients and flavors which helped put him on the map. His career took off and he went on to compete in Top Chef and Iron Chef America, prepare a state dinner at the White House, and win a James Beard Award along the way.

Recently, on the hit Netflix cooking competition Culinary Class Wars, the 52-year-old had a new story about himself to tell — one about belonging and the trial and error that comes with being part of two cultures. It was also the first time he shared his Korean name "Kyun" on television.

"To be honest, I struggled very much with my Korean identity. Am I American? Or am I Korean?" Lee said slowly and carefully in Korean. (After the show aired, Lee admitted that he hired a Korean tutor three weeks before taping.)

He shared a piece of his journey during the first mission of the semifinal round, where contestants were tasked to present a "life-defining" dish. Lee served bibimbap — a traditional Korean rice bowl that deliciously mixes meats and vegetables. He likened it to how he's come to embrace his Korean heritage and American upbringing.

"When I focus on cooking, those thoughts fade away. I can simply relax and just work hard to bring out one flavor. That's what's most important to me. That one flavor," he said. "When you first look at bibimbap, it has a variety of ingredients and a lot of colors. But when you mix it, it creates one flavor."

Lee finished second out of a 100 talented chefs on Culinary Class Wars. But the Netflix series has spurred a new culinary chapter for the seasoned chef. At Shia, his new restaurant in Washington, D.C., Lee is continuing the conversation, exploring what it means to be Korean American in real time and documenting his journey through each dish. He's diving deep into Korean American cuisine, moving beyond traditional recipes and fusion concepts to create something uniquely his own. One dish that will surely make an appearance is his iconic bibimbap.

"I kind of want to continue going on this path, whatever that means and whatever it looks like," he told NPR.

Lee's culinary passion stemmed from watching his grandmother cook when he was growing up. It didn't hurt that Lee was from Brooklyn's Canarsie neighborhood — a melting pot of cultures — where Pakistani, Jamaican and Italian food were all just around the corner. Lee got his first kitchen job at 16 and opened a small Korean eatery in lower Manhattan after graduating from New York University. But after the events of Sept. 11, Lee felt he needed a change.

That's when he recalled his visit to the Kentucky Derby a few months prior and how his first bowl of collard greens felt like "home." So, in 2002, he moved to Louisville and began working at 610 Magnolia with former chef and owner Eddie Garber, who later passed the restaurant on to him. Lee continues to own the business today. He also opened several other restaurants over the years, including Whiskey Dry in Louisville and Succotash in Washington, D.C.

Lee said there was a freedom about being a Korean American New Yorker cooking Southern cuisine. "Because I'm not 100% Southern, I don't have the burden of cooking correct Southern food the way that all Southerners have done it for generations. I can live in this world where I can straddle the two cultures and I can kind of do whatever I want," he said.

But over the years, there has been a loneliness, too. "In some ways, sometimes I feel sad. I'm not 100% Korean, I'm not 100% American, I'm somewhere in between."

Before Lee filmed Culinary Class Wars, the restaurant-to-be was named "M. Frances" to pay homage to American food writer and one of Lee's role models M.F.K. Fisher. At the time, Lee hadn’t yet decided on a specific menu but he knew he wanted it to be mission-driven, focused on finding solutions for the culinary world’s gaps in sustainability and diversity.

Around the same time, Lee was reflecting more and more on Korean food. In 2023, he was chosen as the guest chef for the White House state dinner during South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's visit. That year, he also opened a traditional Korean barbecue restaurant in Louisville. "What is Korean food? And what is Korean identity?" Lee recalled asking himself.

Those questions came even more into focus while competing on the Netflix series. "I really enjoyed some of the food I made on the show, and I wondered if there was a way to preserve some of the dishes," he said.

Now named Shia, which draws inspiration from the Korean word for seed, Lee's 22-seat Korean fine-dining restaurant is geared toward reducing plastic. He's employed research assistants to track and analyze costs, and plans to that share data with other eateries in hopes it will encourage them to adopt more sustainable practices. For now, this "experiment" as Lee calls it is only meant to last five years, which is when his restaurant's lease ends.

"The goal has always been to inspire conversation, dialogue, to spur creativity, and to inspire people to do similar things in their hometown," he said.

Shia has refrained from cling wrap and plastic containers and invested in materials like eco-friendly trash bags. Some ingredients like soy sauce still arrive in plastic packaging — a challenge they’re working to address in the coming months. Shia also has an open-kitchen layout in order to practice transparency with its patrons. Lee also intends to run a women’s chef mentorship program from the restaurant.

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

The drink is so common in the Korean community that it’s often simply called “hot water" and it’s the first thing you’re asked about when seated in a Korean restaurant. Transforming it into an ice cream flavor wasn’t just a nod to his Korean heritage — it was a way to evoke shared memories.

"I wanted to take that memory of boricha and make it different," Lee said.

For me as a kid, I used to recoil whenever I accidentally sipped from my parents' cup of warm barley tea. Years later, after moving away from home and going through my own Korean American identity crisis, I was served barley tea at a small Korean restaurant. The first taste brought on a wave of unexpected homesickness that moved me to tears. The drink didn't solve all my problems, but for a brief moment, there was nowhere else I'd rather be.

Even after taping Culinary Class Wars, Lee said he is still figuring out what it means to belong but there is one thing he is more certain about than ever.

"I think the hope and the encouragement is that you do belong somewhere, all of us belong somewhere, even if we don't feel like we have a true identity, there is a place where you belong," he said.

Copyright 2024, NPR

• Dr. Marty Makary on medicine's blind spots
• Performance Today host Fred Child on taking the ‘stuffiness’ out of classical music
• Art Hounds: The M gets bigger, student-curated Black joy and fancy chairs you can’t sit on
• Percival Everett wins the National Book Award fiction prize