Jeff Kim

The Climb

Formal training at International Culinary Center gave Jeff Kim the technical base; the floor work at Momofuku in New York City taught him the rest. Starting there as a busser, he came up through the pace of service from the bottom rung, learning how a room holds together when every movement has to land on time. That kind of entry point is less about romance than repetition: watching standards, absorbing pressure, and understanding how a dining room operates when the tickets do not stop.

Today

Chef and co-owner is the role Jeff Kim holds at Nudibranch in New York City, and the restaurant’s identity tracks closely with the name behind it. Nudibranch points to color, curiosity, and a refusal to settle for the ordinary; that idea has been part of how Jeff describes the place from the start. The work here is not only about the plate, but about giving the room a clear language—one that can carry memory, play, and personality without losing its footing.

In Their Words “Sea slugs are colorful and diverse and beautiful. That seemed symbolic when we started brainstorming about the kind of food we wanted to create.” “My mom loves soba. That's probably the one thing that we both crave all the time, specifically cold soba on a hot day like today.”

Recognition

Soba Alla Bottarga is Jeff Kim’s signature dish from Nudibranch, and it came out of the city’s Covid lockdowns. The context matters: when restaurants were working under restriction, the kitchen still had to produce something that carried comfort and a sense of place. Jeff has said the dish mattered to him because it was tied to what his mom loves, and that family reference sits inside the plate rather than outside it. “My mom loves soba. That's probably the one thing that we both crave all the time, specifically cold soba on a hot day like today.” The restaurant name follows the same logic. “Sea slugs are colorful and diverse and beautiful. That seemed symbolic when we started brainstorming about the kind of food we wanted to create.”