“Why Not?”: Jiho Kim’s Culinary Philosophy Starts with a Question

Chef Jiho Kim didn’t come to America to become a chef. When he moved from South Korea to Boston in 2004 at the age of 28, he barely spoke English and had no formal training—just a willingness to work hard. His first job in the U.S. was in a cookie production facility, baking and cleaning for long shifts without complaint. “Even that job was super boring,” he says, “but I cleaned the kitchen by myself. The owner saw me and thought, ‘This guy’s different.’” That small moment of recognition would set Kim on an unexpected journey from back-of-house laborer to the visionary chef behind Joomak, one of New York’s most ambitious new tasting-menu restaurants.

Formative Years: From Cookies to Cookbooks

Kim’s culinary career didn’t begin in a kitchen with tweezers—it started with cookies on a production line. At his first job in Boston, he wasn’t making dough, just scooping and baking cookies in bulk. “I didn’t even speak English,” he says. But the bakery owner took notice of Kim’s diligence and connected him to a friend who ran a small bistro. That second job, prepping salads and flatbreads, became Kim’s unofficial culinary training ground.

Over time, Kim cycled through a string of kitchens to make ends meet—until 2006, when he landed a pastry position at L’Espalier, one of Boston’s premier fine dining institutions. It was there that Chef Frank McClelland changed the course of Kim’s life.

“One day, he called me into the private dining room. I thought I was getting fired,” Kim recalls. “But instead, he said, ‘I see how hard you work. I think you have talent, and I want to invest in you.’”

That investment came in the form of a solo trip to New York City, arranged and paid for by McClelland, to experience the best of fine dining firsthand. Kim remembers walking into Daniel—then a three-Michelin-starred restaurant—with a borrowed jacket and wide eyes. “It felt like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, sneaking into the fancy part of the ship,” he laughs. “That one dinner changed my life. I knew then: I want to work in a place like this.”

Finding a Voice Through Pastry

After returning from New York, Kim began taking pastry more seriously. He stayed at L’Espalier for over six years, refining his craft and gradually carving out a path forward. Still, he felt there was more to explore—especially in the savory realm. In 2013, he moved to New York City and briefly joined Gordon Ramsay’s team at The London NYC before landing a transformative role as Executive Pastry Chef at The Modern, Danny Meyer’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant at MoMA.

The Modern became a pivotal chapter in Kim’s evolution. “I loved being in the kitchen,” he says. “Even though I was in pastry, I’d go into the savory kitchen to learn how to make sauces, cook proteins. I didn’t want to stay in one lane.”

While leading the pastry program, he began experimenting—using savory flavors in desserts, and pastry techniques in savory dishes. He also immersed himself in molecular gastronomy and precision cooking, studying cookbooks and YouTube tutorials. One key influence? The elBulli cookbook, which he bought for $600 on eBay nearly 20 years ago. “That book opened my mind,” Kim says. “It showed me I didn’t have to follow the rules—tarragon could be sweet, foie gras could be dessert.”

His time at The Modern helped shape the core of his culinary identity: a chef unbound by category, fluent in both sweet and savory, and fascinated by the unexpected intersections between the two.

A Pandemic Pivot and the Birth of Joomak

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Kim’s trajectory—like that of many chefs—was abruptly derailed. With restaurant dining paused and no income coming in, he returned to South Korea temporarily to be with family. When he came back to the U.S. a month later, he discovered he was ineligible for unemployment benefits due to his international travel. “I didn’t have any financial support. I was desperate,” he recalls.

Out of necessity, Kim began taking small catering gigs and selling homemade meals—everything from cookies to ramen. A casual Instagram post showing sushi he’d made for himself prompted an unexpected DM: someone asked if he could come make it at their house. “I said, sure, no problem,” he laughs. One request led to another, and soon he found himself busy with private omakase dinners, which evolved into his first pop-up under the name Joomak, a Korean word meaning “tavern.”

He rallied former colleagues from The Modern and hosted a four-month pop-up in Koreatown. “We were packed every night. Media from all over the world wrote about us,” Kim says. The success of that initial run led to two more pop-ups, and eventually, a lease for a permanent space on 32nd Street in Koreatown, where he officially opened Joomak Banjum in 2021.

Despite earning a Michelin star in its first year, Kim found the Koreatown location financially unsustainable. “The rent was too high. I felt like I was just surviving.” So in 2023, he made the difficult decision to relocate, eventually finding a new home in the West Village inside Maison Hudson. The new version—simply called Joomak—opened in January 2025 with a refined tasting menu and renewed vision.

Why Not? A Philosophy of Possibility

At the core of Jiho Kim’s culinary vision is a deceptively simple motto: “Why not?” It’s a phrase he repeats often—both in the kitchen and in conversation—as a kind of mantra for creative freedom. “If someone tells me an idea won’t work, I just say, ‘Why not?’” he explains. “Let’s try first. If it fails, we move on. But maybe we’ll discover something new.”

Kim's philosophy was forged over years of blending pastry precision with savory experimentation, but its roots go back to a single dinner. After his mentor at L’Espalier encouraged him to dine at Daniel in New York, Kim was so inspired by the meal that it shifted his entire mindset. “It was like a movie,” he says. “It changed my life. I wanted to cook like that.”

Since then, he’s followed that instinct wherever it led—whether adapting pastry techniques to savory dishes, reimagining bouillabaisse with gochujang, or crafting desserts that look like dumplings and taste like winter nostalgia. His approach doesn’t fit easily into a category, but it’s unmistakably his.

“I’m competing with 240,000 other chefs in New York City,” Kim says. “So just cooking a perfect medium-rare steak isn’t enough. I need to do something different. I need to ask: why not?”