“My passion is not cooking,” says Dae Kim. Every night, Kim returns home from preparing 12-course tasting menus at Nōksu, in Manhattan, to an apartment with no stovetop, no pots, and no silverware. “I hate cooking at home.” And yet, at 29 years old, he is an alum of Thomas Keller’s three-Michelin-starred Per Se. Since Nōksu opened, in October, he’s been the head chef of the Korean-inspired fine-dining restaurant, which is located in the 34th Street–Herald Square subway station.
When Kim moved from Seoul to Chicago at the age of 14, he dreamed of becoming a motorcyclist. He lived with his aunt and uncle, and did not fit the high-school mold. “I had a lot of trouble back then,” he admits. Frustrated by academics and uncertain about his future, Kim found refuge in the kitchen. He started cooking by accident, while working as a dishwasher and laundry boy at Ria, a restaurant in Chicago’s Waldorf Astoria hotel. “I didn’t fall in love. I just did it because I felt like I was valuable,” says Kim. Later, he became a line cook to earn some extra money. Ria was not a bad place to start—before closing, in 2012, it had two Michelin stars.
