Korean American chef Edward Lee’s claim to fame was as much about his story as his delicious food: A New York native travels to Louisville, Ky., and instantly falls in love with kale and fried chicken after his first bites.

Lee I’m all for Southern comfort foodIt incorporated Korean ingredients and flavors that helped put it on the map. His career took off and he continued competing Top Chef And Iron Chef America, Host a state dinner at the White House and win a James Beard Award along the way.

Recently on Netflix’s popular cooking competition Cooking Class WarsThe 52-year-old man had a new story to tell about himself; It’s a story about belonging and the trial and error that comes with being part of two cultures. He also shared his Korean name “Kyun” on television for the first time.

“To be honest, I struggled a lot with my Korean identity. Am I American? Or Korean?” Lee said slowly and carefully in Korean. (After the show aired, Lee accepted He said he hired a Korean teacher three weeks before the recording.)

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He shared some of his journey during the first task of the semi-final round, where contestants were tasked with serving a “life-defining” dish. Lee served bibimbap, a traditional Korean rice bowl that mixes meat and vegetables in a delicious way. He likened it to how he embraced his Korean heritage and American upbringing.

“When I focus on cooking, these thoughts disappear. I can relax and work hard to create a single flavour. That’s the most important thing for me. That single flavour,” he said. “When you first look at bibimbap, there are so many different ingredients and so many colors. But when you mix it, a single flavor emerges.”

Lee came second among 100 talented chefs Cooking Class Wars. However, the Netflix series opened a new page in the kitchen for the experienced chef. Lee continues the conversation at his new restaurant Shia in Washington, D.C., exploring in real time what it means to be Korean American and documenting his journey with each dish. He dives deep into Korean American cuisine, going beyond traditional recipes and fusion concepts to create something uniquely his own. One dish that will definitely make an appearance is the iconic bibimbap.

“I want to continue down this path, whatever that means and whatever that looks like,” he told NPR.

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Lee’s passion for cuisine stemmed from watching his grandmother cook while growing up. It didn’t hurt that Lee hailed from Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood—a melting pot of cultures—where Pakistani, Jamaican, and Italian food are right around the corner. Lee got his first kitchen job at 16 and opened a small Korean restaurant in lower Manhattan after graduating from New York University. But after the events of September 11, Lee felt he needed a change.

That’s when he remembered his visit to the Kentucky Derby a few months ago and how “at home” he felt with his first bowl of kale. So, in 2002, he moved to Louisville and started working with former chef and owner Eddie Garber at 610 Magnolia; He later transferred the restaurant to himself. 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.

Being a Korean American New Yorker who cooks Southern cuisine is a freedom, Lee said. “Since I’m not 100% Southern, I don’t have the burden of cooking proper Southern food like all Southerners have done for generations. I can live in a world where I can mingle two cultures and be kind enough to do whatever I want,” he said.

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But as the years passed, loneliness also emerged. “In some ways, I get upset sometimes. I’m not 100% Korean, I’m not 100% American, I’m somewhere in between.”

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Before Lee withdraws Cooking Class WarsThe future restaurant was named “M. Frances” in homage to MFK Fisher, an American food writer and one of Lee’s role models. 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 to the culinary world’s gaps in sustainability and diversity.

Around the same time, Lee began to think more and more about Korean food. He was selected as guest conductor in 2023. White House state dinner During the visit of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. He also opened a traditional Korean barbecue restaurant in Louisville that year. “What is Korean food? What is Korean identity?” Lee remembered asking himself that question.

These questions became clearer while competing on the Netflix series. “I really enjoyed some of the dishes I made on the show and wondered if there was a way to preserve some of the dishes,” he said.

Lee’s 22-seat Korean fine dining restaurant, named Shia after the Korean word for seed, aims to reduce plastic. It has hired researchers to track and analyze costs and plans to share the data with other restaurants, hoping it will encourage them to adopt more sustainable practices. For now, this “experiment,” as Lee calls it, is only planned to last five years, that is, when his restaurant’s lease expires.

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“The goal has always been to inspire conversation, to inspire dialogue, to encourage creativity and to inspire people to do similar things in their hometowns,” he said.

Shia avoided plastic wrap and plastic containers and invested in materials like environmentally friendly trash bags. Some ingredients, like soy sauce, still come in plastic packaging; They are trying to resolve this issue in the coming months. Shia also has an open kitchen layout to ensure transparency with customers. Lee also plans to run a chef mentorship program for women at the restaurant.

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

This drink is so common in Korean society that it is often simply referred to as “hot water” and is the first thing you are asked when you sit down at a Korean restaurant. Turning it into an ice cream flavor wasn’t just a nod to her style. Korean heritage; It was a way to revive shared memories.

“I wanted to take Boricha’s memory and make it different,” Lee said.

As a child, I would recoil whenever I accidentally took a sip of my parents’ hot barley tea. Years later, after moving away from home and experiencing my own Korean American identity crisis, I was served barley tea at a small Korean restaurant. The first taste caused an unexpected wave of homesickness that brought me to tears. Drinking didn’t solve all my problems, but for a brief moment there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

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Even after taping Cooking Class WarsLee said he’s still figuring out what it means to belong, but there’s one thing he’s more sure of than ever.

“I think hope and courage is that you belong somewhere, we all belong somewhere, there is a place where you belong, even if we don’t feel like we have a real identity,” he said.

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