96 c hefsnewbestEUNJO PARK
ka�wi, new york cityUNJO PARK IS ON A MISSION to get the world to respect
the rice cake, the chewy Korean staple that has long
been the base for humble, everyday dishes. At Kāwi,
in New York City, Park chops them up like East Asian
gnocchi and showers them in Parmesan and black truffle or buries
them in a jammy ragù made from extra-fatty Wagyu beef. At lunch, she
serves up a gorgeous coil of rice cake that has been pan-fried, dunked
in a chile jam, and topped with a layer of Benton’s ham with a flourish
of rice pearls for crunch. There is nothing humble about this rice cake,
which comes with a $26 price tag and gold shears for serving.
Park never set out to cook Korean food. Though the cuisine has nowEi hope that WE DON’T
LOSE THE DIVERSITY
THAT MAKES THIS
INDUSTRY SO GREAT.^
i hope that people will
continue to try different
types of restaurants and
that more cuisines get
their chance to be
celebrated.” —eunjo parkfound a foothold in the American fine-dining lexicon, that wasn’t
always the case. “Growing up, I never thought Korean food could
be anything more than home cooking,” she says. Park was born in
South Korea; her family moved to Philadelphia when she was 11. She
went to the Culinary Institute of America and worked in prestigious
French kitchens like Daniel and Per Se in New York City until a friend
convinced her to take a job at Momofuku Ko.
“At first I was not really into it,” Park recalls. “I always wanted to do
French or American fine dining.” But once she went in for a tryout, she
fell in love with 2006 F&W BNC David Chang’s menu, which melded
fine-dining techniques with Asian ingredients. Park then moved back
to South Korea to cook at Gaon, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant
owned by a friend’s parents. “It was Korean food like I’d never seen
before.” Those two experiences changed her understanding of Korean
food forever. In 2019, Chang tapped Park to run Kāwi, and today, thePORTRAIT BY GARY HE