‘Weirdo’ Korean chef is obsessed with noodles – and he’s on a mission to make healthier versions
- Michelin-star chef Kim Do-yun keeps over 500 ingredients labelled by year of production and origin – most notably wheat, which is key to his noodles
- ‘I spent over 17 years of my 30-year career dedicated to noodles,’ says Kim, who wants to open a laboratory and museum to showcase Korean food ingredients
By Park Jin-hai
Chef Kim Do-yun of one-Michelin-star restaurant Yun Seoul, known for his expertise in noodles and dedication to sourcing ingredients, is proud of being a “weirdo obsessed with ingredients” – a quirky label given to him by his customers.
In his restaurant, Kim has a lab-like refrigerated storage space where he keeps over 500 ingredients, labelled by year of production and place of origin – various pickles, dried vegetables, beans, grains, seeds, dried meat and dried fish, some of which have been aged up to seven years.
His collection of seeds alone includes some 90 different kinds of sesame and perilla seeds.
Kim says each ingredient, gathered from around the world and across South Korea, is like a book in a library. “I try to keep some ingredients produced [from a year] to study. I compare gosari (bracken fern) produced and dried seven years ago to that of this year and examine how its texture and taste became different,” Kim says.