One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Food & Wine Names KogiBBQ's Choi a 'Best New Chef'
Roy Choi inside the KogiBBQ truck (Tom Andrews/LAist)
Honorees named as Food & Wine mag's "Best New Chefs" of 2010 will be formally announced and celebrated tonight at a party in NYC, but news of who made the list broke a little earlier via F&W's iPhone app, according to GrubStreet. Los Angeles can boast one person on the list of ten, and it's someone who up until recently has been doing his cooking on the road: KogiBBQ's Roy Choi.
Choi, however, didn't start his career in a truck. Back when we first met Choi aboard the Kogi truck, we learned he "graduated at the top of his class at the Culinary Institute of America and has cooked at Le Bernardin in New York, in Iron Chef Michiba’s kitchen, at the Beverly Hilton and Rock Sugar Pan Asian Kitchen."
After the undeniable smash hit and trend-setting of the KogiBBQ truck enterprise, Choi celebrated his birthday a few weeks late last month with the opening of Chego, a brick-and-mortar restaurant on Overland, specializing in rice bowls.
With Choi the only L.A. chef on the list, it could be said that our food trucks are driving our reputation on the national culinary landscape.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
