Roy Choi

Coming Up

Training across the Culinary Institute of America, California State University, Fullerton, and Western State University law school gave Roy Choi a broad technical base before the work hardened in kitchens. The through line is not polish for its own sake, but command of pace, discipline, and format: the kind of control that lets a cook move between fine-dining systems and more public, improvised modes without losing standards. In 1996, his internship at Le Bernardin in New York City, New York placed him inside that sort of exacting structure early. By 2001, the scale of the work had shifted to hotels, where repetition and consistency are part of the craft. As journeyman hotel chef at Hilton Hotels, Roy Choi was operating in a setting that demands stamina and a tight hold on fundamentals. That logic continued in 2007 at Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, where he was Head Chef in a polished hotel environment with high expectations. The next stages widened the field rather than narrowing it: Chego! In the Los Angeles area, California; A-Frame; and Pot at the Line Hotel in Koreatown, Los Angeles, California each extended the work into different rooms and audiences, while keeping the same requirement for control. That range is also visible in LocoL in Watts, Los Angeles, California, where from 2015 Roy Choi was co-opener with chef Daniel Patterson. At the same time, he worked as technical advisor at Chef from 2014, translating kitchen practice into film language without leaving the craft behind. The current span of his work includes chef and co-founder of Kogi since 2008, chef of Sunny Spot, chef of Best Friend since 2018, producer and host of Broken Bread since 2019, and presenter of The Chef Show since 2019.

Where They Are Now

The present shape of the work sits between restaurant service and media, but the underlying approach stays consistent: each project is treated as its own format, not as a repeatable template. At Best Friend in Las Vegas, Roy Choi works as chef while also continuing as chef and co-founder at Kogi BBQ, a position he has held since 2008. His own description makes that position clear: “I don't have a multi-outlet growth type of fucking outlook.” The point is not expansion for its own sake, but making each outlet carry a distinct rhythm and purpose.

Signature

The signature names attached to Roy Choi are Kogi BBQ, Kogi BBQ Taco Truck, and Best Friend. Read together, they show a practice built around format as much as flavor: the truck, the restaurant, and the named concept each carry the same pressure to be coherent, useful, and specific to the audience they serve.

In Their Words “I just create albums. I just create the thing and then try to make it the best I can.” “I don't have a multi-outlet growth type of fucking outlook.”

Honors

Roy Choi's honors include TIME 100 and Food & Wine Best New Chef (2010).