๐ฐ๐ท South Korea ยท Korean cuisine ยท b. 1970
The chef who started the modern food-truck movement with Korean tacos.
Roy Choi is a Korean-American chef whose Kogi BBQ truck, launched in Los Angeles in 2008, is widely credited with starting the modern American gourmet food-truck movement. Kogi sold Korean-Mexican fusion tacos โ short rib bulgogi in a corn tortilla โ and used Twitter to broadcast its location, building enormous queues at a time when food trucks were still considered low-end.
Trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, Choi worked in classical kitchens before launching Kogi, and since then has opened restaurants including Chego, A-Frame, Locol (a project to bring affordable healthy fast food to underserved Los Angeles neighbourhoods), and Best Friend in Las Vegas.
He has also been an outspoken advocate for low-income food access โ an issue Locol was specifically founded to address โ and his memoir 'L.A. Son' is one of the most acclaimed chef memoirs of the 2010s.
Street food, deeply considered. Choi argues that great cuisine doesn't need white tablecloths โ it needs cultural authenticity, technical care and accessible price points. His work blends Korean home cooking, Mexican-American street food and California ingredients into something specifically Los Angeles.
The original Korean taco truck that started the gourmet food-truck movement in 2008.
Casual Korean-American rice bowls.
Korean-American sit-down restaurant inside the Park MGM.
Original recipes we created as homages to Roy's cooking style and signature dishes. Not direct reproductions of any copyrighted material โ these are our interpretations of the traditionsRoy has worked with throughout their career.
These recipes from our database reflect the korean cooking tradition that Roy works in. They are not direct reproductions of Roy's copyrighted recipes, but traditional dishes inspired by the same culinary heritage.
Graduates from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
Launches the Kogi BBQ taco truck in Los Angeles, using Twitter to broadcast locations โ sparks the modern food-truck movement.
Named Food & Wine Best New Chef โ the first food-truck chef ever to receive the honour.
Publishes the memoir 'L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food.'
Co-founds Locol with chef Daniel Patterson to bring healthy affordable fast food to underserved LA and Bay Area neighbourhoods.
Opens Best Friend at Park MGM in Las Vegas โ his first sit-down Korean-American restaurant outside Los Angeles.
Hosts the Netflix series 'Broken Bread' exploring food justice across Los Angeles.
Choi did not invent the Korean taco as a concept โ Korean immigrants in Los Angeles had been making bulgogi-and-tortilla combinations at home for decades โ but his Kogi truck, launched 2008, popularised it globally and turned Korean-Mexican fusion into a national movement.
Locol was a chain Roy Choi co-founded with chef Daniel Patterson in 2016 to bring affordable, healthy fast food to underserved Los Angeles and Bay Area neighbourhoods. It received critical acclaim โ including a 2-star New York Times review for its Watts location โ but most branches eventually closed; Locol's mission lives on in similar projects.
When Kogi launched in 2008, food trucks generally parked in fixed locations. Choi's team broadcast the truck's next stop on Twitter, attracting hours-long queues of fans following them across the city. It is widely cited as one of the earliest examples of a small food business going viral on social media and changed how food trucks operated nationwide.
Choi served as the culinary consultant and on-set chef for Jon Favreau's 2014 film 'Chef,' which was directly inspired by the modern food-truck movement Choi had launched. The two later co-hosted the Netflix series 'The Chef Show' from 2019.
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