Chef Hee-Sook Cho joins NANRO Next as a mentor. She began her career in 1983 in the Korean kitchen "Eunhasu" at Sejong Hotel, and went on to lead the Korean kitchens at Novotel Ambassador, Grand InterContinental, and The Shilla — some of the country's most demanding hotel restaurants. In 2005 she served as executive chef at the Korean Ambassador's Residence in Washington, D.C., stepping into the role of Korean cuisine's own diplomat. From 2007 she has focused on traditional Korean cuisine research as a food-heritage advisor with the Arumjigi Culture Keepers Foundation, and in 2017 she opened Hansik Gongbang, a studio for research and shared learning. She earned a Michelin star at Hansik Gongan in 2019, was named Asia's Best Female Chef in 2020, and in 2021 became the first Korean chef to receive the MICHELIN Mentor Chef Award.
Three lines run through the way she works. First, roots have to be deep to hold — an attention to tradition first, and the spirit of beopgochangsin: honoring the old to create the new. Second, measurement sets the center, but the fine margins have to be caught with the five senses. And third, "my recipes are not mine to keep" — an openness that has kept four decades of kitchen experience in circulation among fellow chefs. She does not treat her own way as the one right answer; she joins NANRO Next in that spirit, as a chef walking the same road, sharing experience and growing alongside others.
