Chef Choi Hyun-seok takes his 'comedy cuisine' to New York

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An interview with Choi Hyun-seok, chef of Choi.

Chef Choi Hyun-seok. [Provided by Choi.]

Funny, but never frivolous. Chef Choi Hyun-seok's cooking is a moving comedy performed on the stage of a kitchen.

Fine dining is often compared to cinema — the kind that prizes artistic expression and emotional interpretation, or the kind defined by meticulously composed visual meaning.

But Choi's cooking is closer to comedy. His flamboyant performances and witty, playful dishes draw laughter from his guests, while the flavors deliver something deeper. The definition of comedy — funny, yet never merely silly — applies to his food in full.

A dish shaped like a canned ham. [Provided by Choi.]

Fine dining can weigh on guests. Many feel intimidated by the high prices and unfamiliar atmosphere. Choi questions that reality — why should customers who have paid so much feel uncomfortable? He wants everyone who walks into his restaurant to leave having laughed and enjoyed themselves.

"After 30 years in the kitchen, I realized: I want to cook food that feels like a moving comedy," he said. "Cooking should be fun. In Korea, fine dining still feels out of reach for a lot of people. Guests spend a lot of money to come in and still end up feeling small. I want fine dining to be a place where people can relax and have a good time. I always tell my staff — don't put on airs. Make the guests laugh."

A dessert shaped like a character from "Gundam," Chef Choi Hyun-seok's favorite anime series. [Provided by Choi.]

That humor shows up directly in his food. "Choibar," a salmon sushi shaped like an ice cream bar; "Bride of Spring," a red velvet tart molded into a ring box; and "Shef Ham," a tribute to canned ham — each dish draws laughter the moment it arrives at the table. A dessert modeled on characters from "Gundam," the anime series Choi loves, inspires outright awe.

His signature salt-tossing performance was also born from a desire to bring more fun to cooking. He drew inspiration from wushu moves he practiced as a child.

"Cooking the same patterns every day, I started to feel like I was going through the motions," he said. "I thought, can't I make this more enjoyable? I used to do wushu when I was young, and I took the idea from those movements. I showed it on TV and the response was great — a lot of people really took to it."

A red velvet tart shaped like a ring box. [Provided by Choi.]

But the pursuit of fun has its limits. When it comes to flavor, Choi is uncompromising. He knows that humor only means something when it rests on a foundation of taste.

"You can't sacrifice flavor just to get a laugh," he said. "If the food doesn't taste good, guests will never truly laugh — they'll just smirk. The essence of cooking is flavor. Humor comes on top of that. That's exactly why I talk about cooking that feels like a moving comedy."

'Brave because I didn't know better' — the source of Choi's creativity

Creativity is another word that defines Choi. He has built a reputation as a chef who constantly unveils new original dishes, earning him the nickname "Crazy Chef." The playful creations described above are ultimately products of that same creative drive.

Choi says his creativity grew out of an unconventional path. In today's fine dining world, graduating from a culinary school and training at a prestigious restaurant abroad are in effect considered baseline credentials. Choi, who finished his education at high school, is a rare exception in that world.

"I'm not the typical case," he said. "There aren't many chefs who made it here without going to a good culinary school or training at a famous restaurant overseas. There's a saying — brave because you don't know better. Maybe that's why I've never felt resistance to unconventional, challenging cooking."

Chef Choi Hyun-seok's Philly cheesesteak sandwich. [Provided by Choi.]

Born into a family of cooks, Choi was an imaginative child who loved the robot anime "Robot Taekwon V." He was eccentric enough to seriously dream of becoming a robot pilot or RoboCop. Physically gifted and athletically talented, he also stood out as a wushu competitor — and laughingly recalls being "something of a genius" at it. As a young adult, he even dreamed of becoming a gospel singer.

After finishing high school and completing his military service, he was weighing a practical career path when his older brother introduced him to La Cucina, an Italian restaurant in Yongsan. He entered the culinary world there, and under his mentor, Chef Kim Hyeong-gyu, built his culinary foundation and absorbed everything there was to know about running a restaurant.

"Starting at La Cucina was a real stroke of luck," he said. "I was able to learn the fundamentals of cooking properly under an excellent mentor. It wasn't just cooking — I learned cost management, service, customer relations, supplier management, everything that goes into running a restaurant. Working in one place for 10 years is an asset more valuable than any degree or résumé."

He says the creative work he does today is only possible because of the fundamentals he built back then.

"Creativity isn't possible without the basics," he said. "It's because I spent 10 years laying the groundwork at La Cucina that I can create the way I do now."

The walls of Choi's restaurant are lined with his idea notebooks, hung like framed artwork, dense with thoughts and imaginings. He has conceived more than 10,000 original dishes to date. He once closed the restaurant for an entire month just to seek new inspiration. His commitment to creativity is that serious.

"I appeared on 'Culinary Class Wars' to find inspiration," he said. "Strangely, inspiration always seems to come around 3 a.m. I wake up and share the idea in the team group chat right away — otherwise I forget. The next day at work, we build a new dish from that idea. It used to come often, but lately it seems to arrive once every two or three months."

Comedy cuisine intact: Choi's push into New York

Chef Choi Hyun-seok during the interview. [By Chae Sang-woo]

He still hungers for new challenges. The next stage is New York.

"Even if I scrape my knees, I have to keep going — that's the path I've chosen," he said. "The next step is taking my cooking to New York. More foreigners than I expected have come to love what we do. I want to take the same food and try it in New York."

Ultimately, the comedy Choi speaks of is not simply about laughter. It is another form of art — one that delights people, puts them at ease, and in the end moves them.

He agonizes over flavor with relentless focus and pushes himself harder than anyone in pursuit of the new. He wakes at 3 a.m. to catch a fleeting idea and stacks up thousands of pages of notes. The dishes that emerge make guests laugh — and that laughter, at some point, turns to wonder and genuine feeling.

Funny, but never frivolous. That is what makes Choi's cooking special. His food carries humor, and inside that humor lives 30 years of a culinary life built from the ground up. That is why people laugh when they see his dishes, and feel something profound after the very last bite.

The fine dining Choi dreams of may be exactly that kind of place — a space that entertains people in the most sincere way possible, from behind a smile. A restaurant that becomes a comedy stage, delivering deep emotion through flavor.