Best Friend

The truck grammar at the pass

Kogi Short Rib Tacos set the grammar: tortilla, beef, heat, speed. Roy Choi works as chef at Best Friend in Las Vegas, carrying the Kogi method into a room built for the Strip rather than the curb. His training began before the truck became a format of its own. He studied at the Culinary Institute of America and California State University, Fullerton, then entered Le Bernardin in New York City as an intern in 1996, a house where pace and exactitude leave little room for drift. By 2001 he was a journeyman hotel chef at Hilton Hotels, and in 2007 he was Head Chef at Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. That hotel discipline matters here. Best Friend may read loudly, with hip-hop, color, sofas, and late-night energy, but the work still depends on repetition, prep, timing, and a pass that can keep small plates moving without sanding off their street-food edge. Roy Choi has been chef of Best Friend since 2018, while continuing as chef and co-founder of Kogi, a position he has held since 2008. He has described the work in album terms, not chain terms: “I just create albums. I just create the thing and then try to make it the best I can.”

Korean barbecue, tacos, ramen, ribs

The menu names the premise without hiding the seams: Kogi Short Rib Tacos, Birria Ramen, Southside Sticky Ribs. Best Friend works in the space between Korean barbecue, Mexican form, American appetite, and the late service rhythm of Las Vegas. The approach is fusion, but not as decoration. It comes from Choi’s long practice with format, from Kogi BBQ Taco Truck to Chego!, A-Frame, Pot at the Line Hotel in Koreatown, and Best Friend itself. A taco can carry short rib and still behave like a taco. Ramen can take birria’s depth without losing the pull of broth and noodle. Sticky ribs can move from table to table as a small plate, handled by the hands rather than explained at length. The beverage side follows the same room logic: craft cocktails, a sake program, and a curated wine program, each supporting food built for salt, chile, char, sweetness, and fermented depth. The restaurant does not need one clean category. Choi’s discipline is in making the collision legible at the table.

Color, vinyl, and the room’s pressure

The room is not a quiet neutral frame. Best Friend runs on color, lush sofas, resident DJs spinning vinyl, and the compressed charge of a Koreatown-inspired party transplanted to the Strip. The noise is part of the service environment, not a flaw in it. Plates cross the room through hip-hop and conversation; the pass has to hold its line while the dining room pulls in another direction. That tension suits Choi’s wider work. He has moved between restaurants, hotels, trucks, television, and film, including technical advisor work on Chef from 2014 and producer and host work on Broken Bread since 2019. Best Friend keeps that public-facing instinct close to the cooking. The counter, the tables, the back bar, and the pass all work inside the same volume.

A format with its own rhythm

Choi’s own refusal of sameness sits close to this place: “I don't have a multi-outlet growth type of fucking outlook.” Best Friend is not Kogi copied indoors; it is another format, built for Las Vegas, with the truck’s pressure translated into a restaurant room. Kogi Short Rib Tacos still carry the hand that made the format travel.