Judy Joo
31th January - 4th February 2020
Guest of the kitchen team around Valmiro Pasini, Badrutt’s Palace Hotel*****-W-
Chef on her own TV show «Korean Food Made Simple»
Resident Judge on «Iron Chef America»
Exceptional Travel and Hospitality Award 2019
(The 21st Century Icon Awards, London)
Michelin Guide Review 2016-2018 (Soho)
Only Female Iron Chef in the UK and second worldwide
Judy Joo ranks among the best-known cooking personalities in England and Asia, celebrating major successes as a very in-demand TV star having appeared as one of the four Iron Chefs on Iron Chef UK. In her modern Korean cuisine, aromas, ingredients, taste nuances and techniques from three continents all merge together. Judy Joo studied French haute cuisine at the French Culinary Institute in New York, where she received a Grand Diploma in Pastry Arts. Then followed professional stints in Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant and Michelin starred restaurants such as The French Laundry in California and the Nahm in Bangkok.
In 2014, she opened her own restaurant Jinjuu (Pearl) in London. Judy’s cooking is focused on the flavours of her childhood – raised in a Korean-American family in New Jersey, her back porch was lined with her mother’s clay pots, filled with fermenting kimchi, gochujang and doenjang. The house’s garage had racks of drying seaweed, and a Korean barbecue grill tucked in the corner. Judy and her sister were often drafted in to help fold row upon row of dumplings. Her multicultural heritage and training is evident in her dishes today: from ‘disco fries’ influenced by New Jersey highway diners, and topped with spicy cabbage kimchi, to classic French pastries that incorporate traditional Korean ingredients. In mid-2019, she left JinJuu in order to dedicate herself to new culinary projects; her newly opened restaurant Seoul Bird in London as well as her new cookery book “Korean Soul Food”.