Juwon Lee is a chef at Octavia in San Francisco and a 2026-27 U.S. Regional Finalist in the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition. Born in South Korea, Lee spent eight formative years in Singapore before moving to California’s Bay Area in 2017. Those three distinct cultures, and the food memories he carries from each, form the foundation of his cooking.
Lee’s desire to cook began when his mother needed to spend several months each year in Korea for medical appointments. Missing the warmth of a home-cooked meal, he began teaching himself through cooking videos. His early attempts included scrambled carbonara, dry salmon teriyaki, and overcooked steaks, but watching his father and sister eat the meals gave him a sense that he had done something meaningful.
Years later, a visit to his grandparents in Korea helped turn that childhood interest into a professional ambition. Lee watched his grandfather prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. When Lee asked why he never let his grandmother cook, his grandfather explained that seeing the people he cared about enjoy something he had given his time and energy to made him happy. Lee recognized the same fulfillment he had experienced while feeding his own family.
Lee began his professional career as a banquet and line cook in Berkeley. With little formal culinary education, he initially struggled with daily preparation and service but learned to work within the kitchen’s chaos. Short periods at SPQR, Commis, and a cake shop followed before he joined Octavia at 19.
At Octavia, Lee found senior cooks and chefs invested in his development. He learned fundamental techniques while developing a greater sense of responsibility and pride in his work. Nico Pena, then Octavia’s chef de cuisine and now its executive chef, became an especially important mentor. Pena held Lee accountable to the restaurant’s standards while creating space for regular conversations about his progress, challenges, and interests. He also introduced Lee to cooking built around local ingredients, house-made condiments, fermentation, and preservation.
Lee subsequently worked at The French Laundry, where the kitchen’s discipline, exacting standards, and expectation that cooks be prepared for any task strengthened his confidence. He has now returned to Octavia, where he hopes to develop as a manager while cooking the seasonal, ingredient-driven food that excites him most.
Lee describes his cooking in three words: happy, familiar, and intentional. He favors simple preparations that allow ingredients to retain their natural character and avoids adding anything merely for decoration. His food draws on the lemongrass, ginger, white pepper, and other flavors he encountered in Southeast Asia, alongside Korean food memories and the exceptional produce of Northern California.
His competition dish, “Curry and Quail with Ingredients My Mother Said Were Healthy,” is an homage to his parents and the meals that first inspired him to cook. Quail from Brent Wolfe’s Wolfe Ranch is paired with aromatics recalling the packaged curry kits Lee cooked with as a child in Singapore. Mushrooms, carrots, and sunflower seeds evoke the “superfoods” his mother encouraged the family to eat, while a stuffed pasta draws inspiration from her vegetable-filled Bolognese.
Through the dish, Lee hopes to offer the judges a glimpse into the experiences that shaped him. More than any particular technique, he wants it to communicate the happiness he first found in feeding his family and continues to pursue in the kitchen.
Juwon Lee is one of 10 chefs competing in the 2026-27 S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy U.S. Regional Final. Meet the other finalists vying for a place at the global Grand Finale.
