Peter Jo, or Kimchi Pete as many people know him, has done the hard yards, earning his stripes in all facets of the hospitality industry, while at the same time distilling what it is he really wants to offer. He's close now that he has opened his own place, Shik, in the city. Chatting to Peter was a wonderful chase down the proverbial rabbit hole as we followed his thoughts and dreams and quest for the truth of what he does. Wonderful!
Peter, when I got in touch with you, you said you weren’t a qualified chef but that you’ve been involved with hospitality and the food industry for a long time, so how would you describe your relationship and involvement with food?
I just really enjoy looking after people and making sure they have a good time. I’ve done that in all the venues I’ve worked at from Momofuku, 121 BC, Berta, Belles Hot Chicken, I’ve been attached to that idea. It’s something I really enjoy. I fell in love with natural wine and Korean food together from Seoul of Sydney, through that journey. It has grown from there, I guess.
I’ve been trying to find my identity, more importantly, I think. I feel as though through this whole journey in hospitality, I’ve found myself.
This is you own place and the first place you’ve owned. It must feel good to get to that point.
It’s been an amazing journey. I think it was more an identity struggle to begin with. I’ve never really known who I really was. Was I Australian or Korean? Either way, Australian people think, Asian…whatever, Chinese…immigrant. When I go back to Korea, I don’t really fit in there either. But hospitality has steered the journey.
What did you come out of school doing? Did you go straight into hospitality?
No, I came out of high school and went straight into UTS and studied business because of the Asian stereotype of parents forcing you to do that. I went for a semester and dropped out. I went to music school and I realised I had no chance against some of the people that weer studying with me. I dropped out and kept jumping around different industries and areas, searching for what I wanted to do. But I was always working part-time in hospitality to pay the bills. Then I stepped away from hospitality because I had an opportunity in the States, so I was there for a couple of months. It was the first time I’d left hospitality and I felt lost and confused. I came back and started working in hospitality again and that first service back was like, oh my God, this is what I’ve been searching for. So I left my dad’s restaurant which is where I was working and decided to really pursue this career and work with the best and learn the best.
How do you learn from the best and learn the best? Obviously you were very motivated.
At that time, I didn’t really know but I just wanted to learn everything. I literally worked everywhere; at fishmongers, in a bakery, worked as a barista, in restaurants and wine bars. I pressured myself to work as much as possible. Not knowing what was the most effective or the most efficient. At at the time I always thought I wanted to be a waiter and I wanted to be good at what I do. I felt that to be a good waiter, you had to learn everything.
That was 2010-2011 and I felt as though I was still very immature and a dreamer. Over the course of that journey I have matured and it wasn’t about learning with the best. They have definitely had influence on me but it wasn’t the learning. I feel now as though it is more of a philosophy to embrace, which I am still growing as well. For me, it is more of a philosophy, a belief.
Can you put into words what your philosophy is at this point, although it’s evolving?
It is evolving. Until last year when I visited Korea and visited the monk who was on Chef’s Table, Jeong Kwan, who has definitely sparked this whole philosophy, there was an immaturity in me that wanted to be quick. I had an idea that I wanted to be the first Korean chef restaurant to do this. I had felt this pressure for the last five years that someone else would do it before me and I wouldn’t be first.
Then the Monk asked me why I was there and what I wanted to learn. I said, ‘everything,’ being childish still. I was like, I’m with this monk who is amazing. Her food was amazing. She didn’t teach me anything really, but she used to say, look, your approach and your philosophy are wrong. I can’t teach you how to cook if you don’t respect the ingredients. So now I’m trying to take my time with every ingredient I come across. That’s the philosophy. Use great produce, respect it, treat it well.
Then the restaurant side of it is Korean techniques, as true and authentic as possible, but utilising what is available here. There is a lot of debate around that. People struggle to label what my food is so they go to fusion or contemporary or modern, where I don’t feel like it is. It’s simple. I just get the ingredients that are available, and then treat them as much as possible with the techniques from Korea. For example, beetroot kimchi. That’s on the menu at the moment. People struggle to figure out what that is.
This is just the beginning. Now I have a vessel to really experiment.
When you say people, is that people in general, Korean people, Australians…?
Koreans, the media, people in general…even myself. I thought I was doing traditional Korean food but I have accepted that I am not that traditional, in the sense that I am using ingredients that Koreans never used. But also there is a misunderstanding of Korean ingredients even in Korea because ingredients have been forgotten. A lot of Koreans generally hate coriander and they don’t think it is Korean. But we have a name for it in Korean. I did a coriander kimchi and have had debates with people saying how is that Korean? But I’ve found records of a coriander kimchi from the past.
My understanding of Korean food is that we eat a lot of things; we foraged back in the old days. We were a peasant country and the kings got all the good stuff and we had to make do with what is available. We literally have zero wastage. Any of the scraps we had left over from the fish we would salt ferment them and dry them so we could eat them somehow. Or wild foraging; we’d go into the mountains and forage what was available and eat that.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? When we say a particular type of food is traditional to a country, that’s because that is what was available to them locally and then the people would have adapted the techniques which went with what they had. So it is still respecting the ‘rules’ if you use local produce but apply the Korean techniques, isn’t it? I get where you are coming from.
It is difficult to define that though. Fusion is a very bastardized word and I’m not saying I am better than those restaurants who do fusion, I see the mash up. I’m trying to break down the barriers of how Korean food is seen. Mostly people think kimchi and barbeque bibimbap. I am utilising all those because it’s a restaurant and I need to people on the seats to sustain the restaurant and then to show them, hey this something different.
Do you have to train your staff to understand where you’re coming from?
We’ve only been open a week and a bit so I’ve left it as is and I’m just seeing how the space is and how people talk. That’s helping me to see how I’ll talk about it. It’s good that you’ve come now because there’s a lot of confusion in the media and I read things and think, that’s not actually accurate any more. Whereas, I think over the weekend I’ve determined what I am and what I do. Traditional, authentic is blurred. What is tradition and what is authentic?
Like Kimchi. Everyone thinks Chinese cabbage, chilli garlic, ginger but even that has evolved so much on the last 200 years. The first kimchi was either made with eggplant or lettuce. There was no garlic or chilli. It was preserved in a beef broth from my understanding. The word for kimchi has evolved as well. The Japanese influenced us so much and taught us how to grow the napa cabbage we use for kimchi today. The Spanish trade route introduced garlic and chilli to us. So, what is tradition, what is authentic? That makes me question my labels as well.
I was reading that people call you Kimchi Pete and that’s a bit of a label. Where did that come from?
In 2010-2011, there was a collective called Taste of Young Sydney. There was a group of us working in all the great places then and we got together. We loved what we were doing and we wanted to share that with people. That team inspired me to start my collective, Seoul of Sydney. Morgan McGlone from Belle's Chicken, started up the TOYS collective and he’s a really good friend of mine and I was talking to him about doing what he was doing but with Korean food and then he started calling me Kimchi Pete and introducing me to people as Kimchi Pete. People remembered that and at the time people were saying that Korean food was going to be the next big thing and so I guess I just rolled with the name.
I can see that there really are a lot of facets to the identity you’re shaping, or trying to distil. Do you feel as though you’ve arrived at the food you want?
No. This is just the beginning. Now I have a vessel to really experiment, whereas before it was just pop-ups and pop-ups with a full time job don’t allow for experimentation. There are a lot of other things I want to try. I want to push the boundaries of what people are accustomed to. I’m going to start fermenting seafood and some people might get scared that I have a six month oyster somewhere.
I was going to ask you what experience you want the diners to have here and I guess you want them to be brave.
No, it’s not even about being brave. The menu is quite conventional and approachable and I’ll just have a couple of dishes or a side dish that I’m like, hey, try this. Those are just for me, for the fun of it experimenting on the side to grow my understanding and some of those things might influence how I do certain things with the conventional menu.
How exciting.
Yes. And scary. I’m hating my life and loving my life and everything at the moment.
30 Niagara Lane, Melbourne