Netflix’s ‘Culinary Class Wars’: Meet the Black Spoon chefs shaking up Korea’s dining scene (Part 2)

The show pits the industry’s best professionals, the White Spoon chefs, against the underdogs, the Black Spoon chefs. The big names among the White Spoons garnered public interest before the show aired, but now, over halfway through the series, it’s clear that the Black Spoons are making the program truly unique and exciting. The next batch of episodes is set for release on Oct. 1.

So, who exactly are these Black Spoon chefs, what are they doing now, and — if we visit their restaurants — will we be able to taste the dishes they made on the show?

The Korea JoongAng Daily looked behind their show nicknames to answer some of these questions.

This list continues from our previous article, “Netflix’s ‘Culinary Class Wars’: Meet the Black Spoon Chefs Shaking Up Korea’s Dining Scene (Part 1).” 

He currently runs two Sichuan eateries: Cho Kwang 201 and Cho Kwang 101 in Songpa District, southern Seoul.

Cho Kwang 201 offers familiar Chinese dishes that are particularly popular among the younger Korean generation, such as malatang (hot pot), mala xiangguo (stir-fried hot pot), mapo tofu (tofu braised in spicy sauce), dong po rou (braised pork belly) and lazji (firecracker chicken).

Cho Kwang 101 is an Asian tapas bar featuring more experimental plates, which Cho calls a “research lab.” The highlights here are the Dish of the Day and Dumpling of the Day, which Cho prepares with seasonal ingredients he brings to the restaurant each day. There’s no set price. You can also bring a packet of instant soup ramyeon and ask the chef to cook it for you for 2,000 won ($1.52), according to the menu.

Celebrities’ Chef: Lim Hee-won
Chef Lim Hee-won was confident on the show that whatever he cooked, no one had done before. In the first round, he served up a plate of vegetarian sashimi, cooked and presented in a way that mimicked the flavors, textures and appearance of raw seafood.

He sells the same dish at his modern hansik (Korean food) bar, Buto, in Yongsan District, central Seoul. The menu is focused on umami flavor bombs designed to pair with alcohol, like mala herring roe dry noodles, braised chicken with nurungji (scorched rice) and fried eggplant shrimp toast.

Some playful and slightly unusual options, like the vegetarian sashimi, include tempeh cucumber salad and truffle egg cream and kkwabaegi (twisted Korean doughnuts).

Before opening Buto, Lim worked in Hong Kong as the owner-chef of the now-closed Korean fusion restaurant Momojein in Wan Chai.

Seungwoo’s Dad: Mok Jin-hwa
A trained chef turned YouTuber, Mok Jin-hwa’s experimental dishes on the show — like perilla oil ice cream and winter watermelon salad — reflect his free-spirited identity.

Mok operates YouTube channels with over a million subscribers. On his main channel, Seungwoo’s Dad, he uploads food and beverage news and personal rankings of food products. Before closing his restaurant Kitchen Maillard in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, earlier this year, he also uploaded videos of himself cooking staff meals for the restaurant employees.

Kitchen Maillard was Mok’s YouTube studio-slash-restaurant, offering menu items that fused various cuisines, such as salmon poke, Shanghai cream risotto, buldak sundae (blood sausage) pasta and leng saeb (Thai pork bone soup).

Earlier in his career as a chef, he worked under Edward Kwon, who served as head chef at Dubai’s Burj Al Arab, among other luxury hotels around the world.

Mok currently does not operate any restaurants but remains active online in platforms Twitch, AfreecaTV and Chzzk, in addition to four YouTube accounts.

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]