Roy Choi
American chef of Korean origin, creator of the Kogi food truck
Biography
Roy Choi (born in Seoul in 1970) is a Korean-American chef widely credited as one of the founders of the gourmet food truck movement. He is best known for Kogi, the Los Angeles truck that blended Korean and Mexican flavors, and for championing food that is unpretentious.
Choi was born in Seoul and grew up in Los Angeles and Southern California, where his parents ran a succession of businesses, including a Korean restaurant. After dropping out of law school, he trained at the Culinary Institute of America and worked in hotel kitchens, including several Hilton properties, before founding Kogi in 2008 with Mark Manguera and Caroline Shin-Manguera.
Since then he has run restaurants such as Chego!, A-Frame and LocoL, and has published a memoir and cookbook. He remains active in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and his television work, including The Chef Show with Jon Favreau, has brought him wider recognition.
Key contributions
- Kogi, a food truck that popularized Korean-Mexican fusion and the idea of high-quality street food.
- LocoL, a restaurant in Watts aimed at bringing quality fast food to inner-city neighborhoods.
- L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food, a memoir and cookbook published in 2013.
- The Chef Show, a Netflix series he hosted with Jon Favreau.
- His work as a technical adviser on the film Chef (2014), loosely inspired by the food truck movement.