Ji Hye Kim
Chef
Ji Hye Kim is an award-winning Korean-American chef based in Ann Arbor. She’s the chef and owner of Miss Kim, a Korean restaurant that adapts traditional Korean dishes to showcase seasonal Michigan produce. She’s a 5X James Beard Award semi-finalist, a Food & Wine Best New Chefs of 2021, and has been featured in The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Eater, and SAVUER. She was featured in CNBC’s “Make It” series: “My restaurant brings in $1.8M a year. Here’s what it takes to run.”
Born in Korea, she immigrated to New Jersey when she was 13. During undergrad, she studied economics at the University of Michigan and later worked in finance. At 27, she switched careers and fell in love with the food industry.
Beyond serving delicious food, Miss Kim prioritizes paying their employees a fair wage. Employees are offered a full benefit package including medical, vision, dental, HSA, and a 401k — a rarity in the hospitality industry.
This interview has been edited for length & clarity. It took place on February 26, 2025.
Credit: Elana KH Photography
Q: Tell me about your journey to becoming a chef.
JK: I wasn’t meant to be a chef at all.
I grew up in Seoul, Korea where my mom always made really good Korean food from scratch — not just kimchi, she even made her own gochujang. I wasn’t allowed to eat any street food, which she called delinquent food (it’s funny because Miss Kim’s menu now has a lot of Korean street food like tteokbokki).
I would always ask her: can you teach me to cook? But she refused, saying: “You have the misfortune of being born a girl. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to end up in the kitchen once you marry and become a wife. So don’t do it while you’re a kid still.”
So I grew up with really good food that I sort of took for granted. When I was 13, my family immigrated to New Jersey. Coming to the U.S. was a bit of a food culture shock. When I went over to a Korean-American friend's house, I was surprised that home-cooked food could be bad. Then, when I went to an American friend’s house, there was just pizza and boxed mac and cheese. My mom never would have allowed that. Although she was always busy (she owned a nail salon and worked 7 days/wk, 12 hours/day), she always put amazing homemade food on the table.
In New Jersey, some of my relatives were in the restaurant business: my aunt and grandma owned a sushi restaurant, my grandpa had a Korean place. But they would constantly complain about it because running a restaurant is really hard. The goal was not to be there: to not be a chef or small business owner but to have a stable white collar job in corporate America. To be a doctor, lawyer, or accountant. My parents were like: “We’ll accept accountant, but anything below accountant is not good.”
Because of this mindset, when I went to the University of Michigan, I majored in economics. At the time, I was on a student visa. Although I’d been in the U.S. for 6 years, I didn’t see a clear path to citizenship. So a lot of my early 20s was just about getting citizenship. During my time at U-M, I had to take 2 years off because I couldn’t pay the tuition. That made my student visa go out of status, which was a very precarious situation: you’re not undocumented but you also don’t have a work permit. I ended up working as a server at a high-end restaurant, getting paid under the table so I could save up money for school. I was on my feet so much that I remember thinking: “My career goal is to get a job where I can sit down.”
US immigration policy impacted my life so much. This inspired me to study public policy and eventually go to law school. So when I went back to U-M, I double majored in political science and economics because I thought I should have one degree that was more practical.
I graduated right after 9/11 when the job market was horrible. I took the only job that was willing to sponsor my green card: working at a hospital billing company. That’s where I learned how to do accounts payable and manage people. I was doing many different things, which I liked. But what I didn’t like is I had to constantly deny coverage to people because insurance wouldn’t cover it. I saw the price of the same procedure go from $2k to $20k in two years. I realized — I don’t want to be a part of this. I was determined to find something else that was more real than doing paperwork to meet someone else’s financial goal.
That’s also when I got married and my husband (now former husband) got a job as a professor at U-M. So I moved back to Ann Arbor with him. That was the first time in my life when I got to ask: What do I want to do? Previously, I always had to ask: What do I have to do to make ends meet? What do I have to do to keep my immigration status legal here?
But when I asked myself what I wanted to do, I realized I didn't know. So I decided: This is a big question. I don’t have to answer it right now. At the time, I was 27 and 30 seemed like the age I'd have to be a real adult. So I gave myself 3 years to fuck around and find out what I enjoy.
"When I asked myself what I wanted to do, I realized I didn't know. So I decided: This is a big question, I don't have to answer it right now...I gave myself 3 years (until I was 30), to fuck around and find out what I enjoy."
Credit: Elana KH Photography
JK (cont.): The one thing I liked was cheese. I loved shopping at Zingerman’s Deli and being helped by the cheesemongers there who were always so kind and seemed like they enjoyed their job. When a cheesemonger position opened up, I applied. I actually turned down a job offer for a similar hospital billing job in Michigan but I was like: I don’t want it. I want to try working with cheese.
At Zingerman’s, I eventually got on a program called Path to Partnership, where anybody at Zingerman’s can create a new food business and be an owner or managing partner. Through that program, I was able to start my own Korean street food cart, San Street. I was also able to work in different kitchens across the country with travel funded by Zingermans. After a few years of San Street and traveling, I opened Miss Kim."
Credit: Elana KH Photography
Q: Miss Kim does Korean food adapted to showcase Michigan’s bountiful seasonal produce. How did you come up with the concept behind Miss Kim?
JK: People have called Miss Kim “fusion” but I don’t agree with that. The word fusion was popularized by Western cuisine chefs using Asian ingredients out of context.
But Miss Kim’s food is very context-based: our food reflects the season and location of Michigan which is quite similar to the traditional Korean way of approaching food. Although South Korea is a small country (about the size of Indiana), each region has distinct characteristics and food. The Korean Almanac has 24 seasons, not just 4. So Miss Kim is authentic to my experience as an Asian-American in Michigan.
Q: Miss Kim does Korean food adapted to showcase Michigan’s bountiful seasonal produce. How did you come up with the concept behind Miss Kim?
JK: People have called Miss Kim “fusion” but I don’t agree with that. The word fusion was popularized by Western cuisine chefs using Asian ingredients out of context.
But Miss Kim’s food is very context-based: our food reflects the season and location of Michigan which is quite similar to the traditional Korean way of approaching food. Although South Korea is a small country (about the size of Indiana), each region has distinct characteristics and food. The Korean Almanac has 24 seasons, not just 4. So Miss Kim is authentic to my experience as an Asian-American in Michigan.
Q: The popular conception of Asian restaurants is a cheap takeout place. But Miss Kim’s is more elevated — how did you make that choice?
JK: I want to avoid the use of the word “elevated” because I don’t think there’s anything wrong or low about mom and pop takeout joints or street food in Asia. They don’t need a Western chef’s elevation. They’re doing great on their own.
At the same time, Asian food does not have to be served in a dingy dining hall. I hear this all the time: “If you go to a dim sum place and the waiter speaks fluent English or you see too many white people, it’s not authentic enough.” I think that’s borderline fetishizing Asian Americans as a permanent non-English speaking, foreigner group. We don’t have to be that. We deserve to have a variety of experiences — in Korea, you can get mom and pop food, but you can also go to a nice sit-down restaurant run by a young chef.
That wasn’t necessarily the case in America when I opened Miss Kim in 2016. Back then, you only saw 2 types of Asian restaurants: either a mom and pop joint or a super high-end restaurant with a tasting menu. For Miss Kim, I wanted a middle ground: a nice environment that’s still approachable, not a $700 stiff white cloth experience.
Q: What's the dish you're most proud of creating?
JK: First, nothing I do is super innovative. It all comes from somewhere: childhood experiences with my mom, a visit to a Buddhist temple in Korea, or looking at Korean cookbooks from the 1700s.
Having said that, the dish that’s come to represent my restaurant is tteokbokki. It’s a quintessential street food I grew up eating in Korea: soft and chewy rice cake batons in a gochujang-based sauce, sometimes with fish cakes and cabbage. When I opened Miss Kim, I wanted to put tteokbokki on the menu. But my Korean-American friends were like: “Americans don’t like that rice texture. They don’t like the soft sweetness. It’s not going to sell.” So I said: “Challenge accepted.”
One of the street foods I loved in Korea was deep-fried skewered rice cakes that have a crispy texture on the outside but the inside is still nice and chewy. So for Miss Kim, we pan fry the rice cakes. Although tteokbokki traditionally has fish cakes, at Miss Kim, we have a lot of pork belly scrap, so to avoid waste, we used pork belly instead. I added an egg on top because I like egg. Although it’s not drastically innovative, it ended up looking quite different than what was out there at the time and became one of our bestsellers very quickly. Since then, we’ve added other versions, including a cacio e pepe version because I trained in Rome.
In Korea, Korean chefs are not afraid to play with tradition — they understand tradition then put their own spin on it. It’s kind of funny. It’s really only America that freaks out: “It’s not authentic enough!” or “That’s not how I remember my mom making it!” But I will say: if you’re going to fuck with tradition, it has to be tasty. You can’t fuck with tradition and then have it be worse than the street food version.
Street style tteokbokki
Cacio e pepe tteokbokki
Q: What does being an Asian-American chef mean to you?
JK: Sometimes I get questions like: “How does it feel to represent your culture?” or “Is your Asian community so proud of you?” While I do talk about my identity as a Korean American chef, I want to get to the point where that doesn’t come up anymore. Not because it’s ignored, but because it’s already established and we can just focus on food and the guest experience.
I just want our guests to come, forget about the stressors of work/school, and have a great time. Not “We had a great time for Korean food” but “We had a great time.” I can talk about identity and philosophy all day, but at the end of the day, a restaurant needs to stand on: 1) Did the guests have a good time? 2) Was the food good?
Q: How do you define success?
JK: Having been named Food & Wine’s Best New Chef of 2021 and being a 5X James Beard Award semi-finalist, I do relish the awards. But these are only signs that I’m on the right path, not the end vision to strive for.
Success to me is achieving Miss Kim’s vision: to provide great food with great service and stable finances. Our vision is for our staff to have a good working environment. We provide a full benefit package with medical, dental, vision, HSA, and 401k benefits, which is rare in the hospitality industry. Especially for independent restaurants, it’s hard to afford that while meeting the price expectations of the American public.
When I look out at our dining room and see guests smiling, when I look down the line and see my staff having a good time, when at the end of the month, we made a profit — that to me, is true success.
Q: What's your advice for aspiring chefs?
JK: Growing up, many Asian Americans are taught to be humble and harmonious. While that’s great, you have to find the balance between keeping the harmony in the organization you’re in while still unapologetically pursuing your dream.
For example, back when I was interning in kitchens, when the menu was published, every intern was supposed to raise their hand for the dish they wanted to cook. But I noticed all the young people (not just Asian Americans) were very shy about raising their hands. But there’s no need to be shy — raise your hand for what you want.
I was hanging out with a friend who said his daughter agonizes a lot about Asian-American identity: “Am I Asian enough? Am I American enough? Am I getting this because I was a DEI hire?” But this is all noise. Have faith in yourself and pursue what you want. Do it respectfully but unapologetically. Speak up because nobody’s going to do that for you.
Female executive chefs are very rare compared to male executive chefs. But that shouldn’t stop you or give you pause. A white man is not going to ask himself: "Am I taking this position from another person? Am I being harmonious enough?" So why is that making us pause? Being bicultural is an asset. It’s not a handicap. The fact that you're taught to be humble and harmonious makes you more well-rounded. It shouldn’t stop you from achieving your success.
"A white man is not going to ask himself: "Am I taking this position from another person? Am I being harmonious enough?" So why is that making us pause? Being bicultural is an asset. It’s not a handicap. The fact that you're taught to be humble and harmonious makes you more well-rounded. It shouldn’t stop you from achieving your success."
Credit: Elana KH Photography