Today we’d like to introduce you to Ki Kim.
Hi Ki, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I first started cooking to make pocket money while attending college. I almost immediately knew that I wanted to work in kitchens rather than attending school to study what I didn’t have potentials for.
My first job in a kitchen was at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. I was always proud of food that I was making, but I quickly grew out of making buffet-quality sushi. At the time, I admired beautifully plated food from fine dining restaurants, and I really hoped to learn to cook like that one day.
After working at the sushi buffet for a while, I knew there was nothing left to learn for me. I decided to travel and work for different restaurants to be able to make foods that I always imagined. From there on, I started traveling around to observe and learn from different chefs. Including my internship and short stages, I traveled and lived in Aspen, Tokyo, Shizuoka, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Seoul, Manhattan, and Brooklyn.
Even though every single restaurant I worked with were not fine dining caliber restaurant, each restaurant and city has taught me how I can express myself through food. I was last working/ living in Brooklyn as a part of Blanca Restaurant until the pandemic happened in 2020.
I moved to Los Angeles during the pandemic to host a couple popups, but I fell in love with quality of produce here, and I decided to stay. I coincidentally found the spot for Kinn in August of 2021 and opened Kinn in December of 2021. From there on, we have been very fortunate to keep our doors open for business.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It wasn’t necessarily ‘smooth’.
As a first-time business owner, there were many matters other than just cooking that I needed to know about. Honestly, I’m still learning to operate the business at the most efficient way.
If I have to point out one biggest challenge, I think it was facing the gap between customer’s expectations and our initial vision while we were opening.
When I opened Kinn, I was imagining a Korean wine bar with seasonal ingredients. I believe that my popups prior to opening Kinn had an influence on this, but we sensed that our audience wanted something more refined than a casual wine restaurant. We really quickly change the menu over the weekend and started serving a more upscale yet not pretentious tasting menu.
It wasn’t easy transitioning the entire concept so quickly, but I’m very happy with the brand image and identity that Kinn has built along the way.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At Kinn, we serve an inspired 7-course tasting menu.
The menu represents seasonality, local ingredients of Southern California, unique and unknown flavors of Korean cuisine.
Part of our mission is to show out customers how different and refined Korean food can be apart from what we familiarize as Korean food in United States.
We also don’t want to break our customer’s wallet for a tasting menu experience, and I believe our menu is one of the most affordable tasting menus in Los Angeles.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out.
Be kind to others, and don’t give up!
Pricing:
- $95 for 7-course tasting menu
Contact Info:
- Website: kinn.la
- Instagram: kinn.la
Image Credits
Jacob Layman
