Rachel Yang

Korean Fusion Restaurant Owner: Rachel Yang

Rachel Yang, who has been cooking for 16 years, owns and runs three restaurants with her husband in Seattle called Joule, Revel, and Trove. She started her cooking career after attending the Institute of Culinary Education and worked at several New York City-based restaurants: DB Bistro Moderne, Ducasse, Per Se, and Korean D’Or Ahn. Prior to that, she attended Brown University where she received her degree in urban studies and visual arts. After working in New York for some time, Yang moved to Seattle to help a friend open up a restaurant with her husband. From that experience, she decided to start her own restaurant and has been a restaurant owner since the opening of her first restaurant, Joule, nine years ago. Seoul Journal Executive Editor Anthony Al-Jamie had a chance to speak in-depth with Yang about the origins of her cooking and restaurant career, as well as her struggles of satisfying customers with fusion food.

Korean Fusion Restaurant Owner: Rachel Yang

SJ: Can you tell us what you learned at the Institute of Culinary Education?

YANG :The introduction of cooking, basically. I think a lot of people go to cooking school not knowing whether this is the right thing, so they just want to get an education to learn the basics: to make sure that’s what they want to do. I think that’s exactly what I got.

SJ: Which did you prefer, your education at Brown University or your education at cooking school? Which was more rewarding?

YANG: The two are very different. Some people go to college to get a degree, and it becomes the foundation for the rest of their life’s career. And some people go to college and it becomes the stepping-stone, a place where they can explore, and a place where they can try different things out. I think that’s kind of what Brown was for me – actually the whole thing was. I came to the States when I was 15, as one of so many Asian immigrants who are here in America to get a better education. So, it’s kind of like Brown was the one thing that I had to prove to myself or to my parents, and more importantly that I did study hard, I did pay my dues, and I went to a good college. Then I realized what I wanted to do. They didn’t really give me the direction that I really needed, and the cooking school was the place where I found myself.

SJ: How did your career develop?

YANG:I was in New York City and I think it was probably the best place where anyone could be at when trying to cook or do anything else. It opened up so many doors in terms of being exposed to such a great restaurant scene and food. In terms of what was expected when you really want to cook, when you get to work in the restaurants in New York City it’s so different than anywhere else. The standards, the work ethic, attitude, and the things expected of you are tenfold than in any other place. I think it was really awesome that I got to experience it and make my way up. That’s still basically what I hold dear to my heart – the work ethic. Cooking is really honest work; it really depends on how much work you put in and it shows exactly what that is.

SJ: What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of running a restaurant?

YANG:For a lot of people, I think it’s the balance. Cooking is something that really invests all of you 24/7 and it’s like that for any business per se. When you are a small business owner, it’s basically your life and there’s really no end to it. There is no separation between your work and your life. The more you want to give, the more work that’s created by that. So it’s trying to figure out how much you want to do and how much you’re doing is actually creative. Sometimes when you are trapped at work and you’re doing so much, then you are put in a bubble and you don’t get to see the big picture. I’m lucky that I’m working with my husband who is the co-chef. We run the restaurant together, cook together, and we basically have been doing this together for the last ten years. I do have two little boys – a five-year-old and a three-year-old. Having a family, a married life, and also trying to run a business is extremely hard, but I think the fact that we are doing it as a family helps us.

SJ: What was the most challenging thing about actually getting started and opening the restaurant?

YANG:It’s really funny because when I think back on when I first opened Joule Restaurant, which was almost nine or 10 years ago, you think that you have everything figured out and you think that you are here to cook your own food, to make the most amazing experience for customers, and all that stuff. But the thing is, when you look back, you think how childish that was and how unprepared you were when you did it. I think often what you learn more is how much you are cooking your own food and how much you are here to actually feed customers. We’re in an industry where the chefs and the food are the focus, but at the same time, the customers are the ones who are the engine of the restaurant. They’re the ones who guide you, tell you, and want you to go a certain way. Then you end up having this amazing customer base that really understands your food and pushes you in the right direction. You are the balancer, not just this eccentric chef cooking your own food. But you are here in a community where you’re giving your creative place for them to dine in and experience something; you grow with them. I think that’s what makes you learn more as you grow. And when you first open, it’s just all about you.

SJ: Is it challenging to keep good staff?

YANG: It is one of the hardest things in the industry. With any business, your staff is what really makes it or breaks it. It is a service industry that we are in; we are here to serve customers and that is through your staff, your cooks, and your servers. I think it’s really something that’s in human nature, but at the same time, it’s really hard to make that very genuine. In order to make that resonate in the staff – that’s really hard. At the same time, because of the cooking, the restaurant itself is really hard work and it really attracts certain personalities that only certain people can really stay in the restaurant industry.

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SJ: What do you mean by certain personalities?

YANG: Not everyone wants to be on his or her feet 12 hours a day. Not everyone wants to work at a hot stove when it’s 90 degrees outside. Few people experience that brutality, and then really find the joy and almost ecstasy in it. These are the people you’re working with, who want to be pushed, who want to do more, and that’s kind of the environment that you create for yourself. But at the same time, you do want to make it a healthy relationship and a healthy environment for everyone, which needs care and support.

SJ: Can you tell me about your restaurants?

YANG:We have three restaurants in Seattle. We have Joule Restaurant, which has a Korean steakhouse focus – that’s been open for about nine years. We relocated to a new location about three years ago. We also have a restaurant called Revel – it’s our original Korean street food. We have a very popular small menu that consists of dumplings, pancakes, rice bowls, and noodles, so it’s something that can be enjoyed as a four-course meal at lunchtime. People come in at nighttime with their family and friends. We’re putting Korean food as a framework, but then we get to play all sorts of different flavors that are inside the framework. Then, the newest restaurant that we opened is called Trove – it’s in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. It’s a restaurant that we opened up about 10 months ago, and it’s one of the most unique places, I think, anywhere in this country because I feel like we are one of the first few restaurants where we did this whole multi-concept of life in one location. It’s one space that’s divided into four mini spaces and we have a Korean-style tabletop grill for Korean barbeques with our twist on it. Then we have a noodle bar and a little parfait truck that sells parfaits and ice cream. Then we have our cocktail bar in the middle, so it’s interesting when you walk into the door and there’s four little sections that you can walk into that sell different things.

SJ: Is it a challenge to maintain the four different aspects of the restaurant inside one restaurant?

YANG: It is very challenging. It’s something that we didn’t really understand or expect in the beginning – the fact that those four concepts require four different kinds of services. For instance, our ice cream has a little window at the front of the store, so it requires the window as a service, which is totally different than the sit-down, dining service. How the menu fits, how the menu reads, how our cashier works with our customers – that’s all very different. And then our noodle and baked goods are counter service, meaning people walk up to the counter, order and pay, and then wait for their food. That is, again, very different from the sit-down, dining service. So it requires four different manuals of how the food should come out and what it should look like because the expectation is different. So it’s like trying to work with different things that are a little bit exotic and foreign, which I think is definitely challenging but at the same time also fun. It’s always fun when you have a business and you get different types of people, and then people have that “Ah-ha!” moment of how interesting it is.

SJ: What’s your favorite aspect of Korean cuisine?

YANG: That’s a really easy question because I think that’s one thing we were trying to do at Trove. It’s all about being communal, sharing your food. The whole concept of having a big table full of different dishes that everyone needs to dip their chopsticks or spoons into – there is no such thing as “This is my à la carte dish and my entrée” that no one can really have a taste of. It’s all about sharing food together. That’s what is very unique about Korean food, and I think that’s what makes it a very intimate and informal dining experience.

SJ: Do you think the American palette is receptive to Korean cuisine?

YANG:Yes, I think so. You can see the evidence of Korean cuisine everywhere right now. It’s such a popular dish in the food that you see. The one thing that we realize more is we have this dish called dukbokki – it’s a spicy rice cake. It’s something that American people have never really had. It’s made with rice cake, which has a chewiness that people don’t really understand. It’s tossed and served in our spiced, chili sauce, maeun gochujang, which is very spicy. It’s one of the most popular dishes that people try, and it’s a flavor they’ve never had before. That instant spice, sweetness, and garlic – it’s something they get hooked on because they are very addictive. People keep coming back and ordering all the time.

SJ: Do you travel a lot to learn about cooking?

YANG: No. It’s one of those things that I don’t get to do. I hear about a lot of different chefs going on inspirational trips and all that stuff. I guess there’s too much in my life that I’m stuck in like running a restaurant. Most of the travels that we get to do are family vacations. I don’t often get to eat out unless it’s for work. And we try to have our family vacations for our two little boys, so we actually don’t get to go to any nice restaurants.

SJ: What skills do you find to be indispensible for a chef to have?

YANG: Nearly all chefs have all of the main requirements for being an amazing cook and acting as a leader. One thing is perseverance, which is absolutely required to be a chef. There are so many ups and downs, and you realize you have to be a mature leader for situations that are very difficult. You have to be a person who pushes everyone when no one wants to be pushed, and you have to let people know that you are always there to support everyone and be their cornerstone. That’s having the perseverance to push through no matter what kind of situation you end up at. That’s probably the most important characteristic that you need to have.