How a hit show vaulted chef Edward Lee into a ‘new life’ as a Korean star

Edward Lee has had some pinch-me moments over the years.

The Korean American chef opened successful restaurants in New York, Louisville and Washington, D.C. A frequent judge and competitor on American cooking shows, he won a variety meats showdown on “Iron Chef America.” And his cross-country travelogue, “Buttermilk Graffiti,” earned him a James Beard Award in 2019.

But even for Lee, the predawn receiving line he stumbled upon last fall at Dulles International Airport felt … odd.

“It’s like 2 in the morning. I quietly go to the bathroom [in the terminal]. I come out … and the entire flight crew of the airline is lined up, including the pilots,” Lee said. “And every single one wanted a picture and an autograph from me.”

When he deplaned 16 hours later in Seoul, surreality tightened its grip. “I landed … and I was just mauled at the airport.”

How does a chef born in Brooklyn, who built a decades-long career by wooing food lovers in Kentucky and D.C. become a first-class sensation half a world away? Credit the power of South Korea’s pop-culture wave for starters, coupled with Lee’s ability to serve up a bit of himself in every thought-provoking bite of food he cooks.

Oddly enough, the catalyst behind his sudden fame across the Pacific Ocean involved finishing as the runner-up at the end of Netflix’s wildly popular cooking competition show “Culinary Class Wars.” Season 2 of the show debuted Dec. 16 on the streaming platform.

Ahyeong Jeong, a member of the diplomatic corps at the Korean Cultural Center in Washington who offered her perspective as “a Korean viewer,” said South Koreans were so consumed by the show — which dominated the country’s streaming diet post-debut and Netflix reports spent three weeks as the most-watched, non-English reality show on its global top 10 list — that it “was frequently brought up in everyday conversations, both online and offline.” She said Lee’s “calm demeanor” and “seriousness” distinguished him from the other competitors but estimated that his lifelong journey of self-discovery was what kept audiences riveted.

“His identity as a Korean American and his effort to incorporate that background into his cooking also felt refreshing and memorable,” Jeong said. The feeling was mutual for Lee, whose career in restaurants began with a Korean barbecue joint in New York City that he knew he had “no business doing” yet relished, then blossomed when he fell in love with Southern cooking and bourbon, which fueled his Louisville flagship restaurant, 610 Magnolia. “Culinary Class Wars” forced him to reexamine his roots.

In the aftermath of the show, Jeong said Lee has become a go-to pitchman, cutting ads for Korean “hamburgers, pizza, ramen, cola, soy milk, refrigerator brands and more.”

As a language-challenged outsider, Lee had his work cut out for him on the frenetic show. The competition pitted 20 Michelin-starred chefs and industry professionals revered for their mastery of Korean, Chinese, Japanese and continental cooking against 80 anonymous challengers seeking validation. The world watched as two Korean judges pruned the chefs’ ranks over 12 nerve-wracking episodes, testing their resolve with blindfolded tastings, team-based challenges and a marathon, mock restaurant launch that stretched more than 24 hours. Along the way, Lee put his stamp on aged kimchi, transformed Korean rice cakes into a spicy-sweet frozen treat and spun out a medley of tofu dishes.

In the finale, Lee, the last remaining “white spoon” (celebrity), lost to “black spoon” Kwon Sung-jun, the chef and owner of Seoul’s Italian-themed Via Toledo Pasta Bar. But by then he had endeared himself to millions by leaning into “his humility and eagerness to learn,” a spokesperson for the Embassy of the Republic of Korea told The Washington Post. According to Netflix, the show was the first streaming reality series to be ranked No. 1 as “the most beloved series among Korean viewers” in Gallup Korea’s September 2024 survey.

The experience was transformative for the soft-spoken hospitality veteran who has wrestled with fully embracing his identity as a Korean in America, and as an American in South Korea. It helped him refine his cooking philosophy. “I’m going to go full on into expressing my Korean heritage,” Lee said. “And the only way I know how: through food.”

He has been on a tear ever since. Lee opened Shia, the first Korean tasting menu restaurant in D.C., in November 2024; this year headlined marquee dinners in Hong Kong, China’s Macao, Singapore and Taipei, Taiwan; signed a one-year deal with South Korean fast-food chain Mom’s Touch to sell signature comfort foods; and traveled to Seoul in January with his mother to accept the Korea Image Stepping Stone Bridge Award for raising Korea’s profile on the world stage. “It was actually the first time being in Korea with my mother in my whole life,” he said.

And the offers keep pouring in. “I could go every weekend if I wanted to,” Lee said of his transpacific lifestyle. “I turn down a lot.”

Fellow D.C. restaurateur Erik Bruner-Yang witnessed firsthand the mania engulfing his friend during a recent trip to Taipei. As they walked through a local mall, the Taiwanese native said fans swarmed Lee. “It was like instant recognition of who he was and people busting out their cellphones to film him.”

The adulation has taken some getting used to.

“Most 53-year-olds are kind of looking down the barrel of retirement,” Lee said. “For me to have this opportunity and this new life is just incredible.”

Back in the District, Lee said he still feels “virtually anonymous,” noting that he can crisscross the city and “no one cares about me.”

That’s not entirely true. Danny Lee, a close friend and fellow Korean American restaurateur, said plenty of locals admire Lee — even if they can’t pick him out of a lineup.

“One day, I was outside of his restaurant, Succotash. I’m wearing street clothes, he’s actually wearing a chef coat. And a guest came out, went straight to me and said, ‘Chef Lee, thank you so much. I just had a great dinner.’ And I was like, ‘You should be talking to the one who’s actually in uniform,’” Danny Lee said.

The Anju and Chiko co-owner was by Lee’s side for a 300-person dinner in Macao where they met global soccer icon David Beckham, and a 2023 state dinner at the White House for then-South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. But what’s most jarring for Danny Lee is watching his cooking buddy sway multitudes by just being his “genuine self.”

“This one person … literally started a conversation that needed to happen in Korea about how Koreans view Korean Americans,” Danny Lee said. He marvels at “the power that one person can hold in terms of shifting the viewpoint of a society.”

“But it’s happening. And it’s great.”

Edward Lee may be a cultural juggernaut abroad, but to Knead Hospitality + Design co-founder Jason Berry, who lured Lee to Maryland’s National Harbor a decade ago with the Southern comfort-fueled Succotash, he remains the cornerstone of their thriving restaurant group. “He is still the same Edward … intelligent, humble, kind and always putting others before himself,” Berry said.

“Whenever there’s a problem, he’s right there next to us, finding creative solutions and making us better for it.”

The handful of aspiring business owners tapped for Lee’s budding Shia Pitch Day program have also benefited from his penchant for troubleshooting.

“It’s about financial literacy,” Lee said of the 10-week workshop he ran twice this year. “Before you sign a lease, before you do anything, there are all these boxes that you have to check off. And none of it has to do with food.” It’s a “crash course” in avoiding professional pitfalls.

Amber Croom and Yassmeen Haskins, co-founders of Baltimore-based Beye Beignets and winners of the inaugural Pitch Day cohort, credit Lee with bringing their career goals into sharper focus.

“It literally laid out every single thing that you needed to actually start your business and not feel like you were flailing,” Croom said of the exhaustive (and often exhausting) hospitality boot camp. The financial projections portion was particularly eye-opening for her, revealing that “I need way more money than I thought I did.”

Between the nuts-and-bolts tutorials and business connections they made, Haskins couldn’t ask for anything more. “We are extremely thankful that Edward Lee put a program like this together. And we really hope that it expands, not just in D.C., but all over,” she said.

Expansion is never far from Lee’s mind, with offers to extend his restaurant reach from Miami to Seoul. But spinning out cookie-cutter clones purely for profit strikes him as distasteful.

“I want my restaurants to leave a memory in the hearts of people,” he said.

While opening something in Korea is on his bucket list, Lee stressed that he would only do so if he were able to physically be there “every day — for at least a year.”

“What I don’t want to do is take all of this good, positive energy, open up a restaurant, stay for two weeks and then leave,” he said. “That would be like a betrayal, and it would feel insincere.”

Meanwhile, there are more TV projects on the way.

Lee has a cameo in Season 2 of “Culinary Class Wars,” and sometime next year fans can catch him in the four-part series “Ed and Ryu: Mad About Seafood.”

And he’s excited to keep digging into himself. “I freaking love cow intestines,” Lee said of the Korean grilled fare (gopchang) he now devours with abandon during his frequent trips overseas. He is also working his way through the 90-plus restaurants run by other “Culinary Class Wars” contestants.

More importantly, he wants to keep sharing these teachable moments with others.

“At some point next year, I’m planning to bring all the chefs here to Korea,” he said of his team-building plans for the crew at Shia.

“I want them to see firsthand some of the things that I’m experiencing. Because it’s life-changing.”