Chef Beverly Kim Revisits Her Roots
The James Beard Award winner transforms her Chicago restaurant into a unique takeout concept utilizing local ingredients, heritage recipes.
My latest LIVE! Culinary Series episode features award-winning chef Beverly Kim of Parachute and Wherewithall restaurants.
What I particularly appreciated about our conversation is that she did not sugarcoat her situation or that of the hospitality industry in general:
“People are excited [about us reopening our restaurant], but there’s so much going on in the world right now,” Kim tells me during our discussion. “We’re competing with the elections. We’re competing with COVID news. And getting the word out [about our restaurant] has been more difficult than I had thought.
“I’ve been doing a lot of guerilla marketing, meaning I’ve been calling, hand-texting, emailing my contacts and saying ‘Thank you for being my supporter.’ No restaurant wants to admit that they’re not doing well, but this is a very different time. I’m a James Beard Award winner, and I can say that I am not sure if I’m going to continue if business continues like this.”
She had shut down her restaurants for a couple of months to re-evaluate the climate as well as to consider the safety of her employees. That’s also when she decided that when she re-opened, she’d call it Lil’ Parachute, operate in Wherewithall (located one block south of Parachute), and serve authentic Korean takeout made with local ingredients from area farmers.
“It’s the quality,” she maintains. “You can taste the difference with the vegetables that come from people who care. It’s very heirloom quality, hand picked vegetables. It feels great to support our local economy, and we’re depending more and more on the local economy than ever before. These farmers also need our support because pre-COVID 60 percent of their orders came from restaurants. We are the backbone for supporting these locals farmers.”
She discusses more about the local farmers, her authentic Korean menus and more during this episode of the LIVE! Culinary Series.