HOT OFF THE PASS
Why Korean chef Esu Lee is building a cult following in Paris
In just over two years, CAM Import Export in Paris’s third arrondissement has joined the ranks of the city’s essential restaurants. It’s up there with the glossy Michelin winners, the luxury hotels and the quaint tiled bistros we all associate with the French capital, yet CAM is a bare bones spot in an old tourist tat shop on the fringes of the Marais. How did it become such a cult hit with locals and visiting foodies alike? “I don’t know,” laughs CAM’s 28-year-old Korean chef Esu Lee. “We never follow trends, I guess, and I try not to copy anyone else’s style of cooking. I try to enjoy myself first and always take care of my own happiness, which I think people can feel in the food and at the restaurant. It’s a happy place, no anger, chill. But we’re serious about what we’re doing at the same time.”
Esu moved to Paris – speaking not a word of French – after training and working in Australia and Hong Kong. The CAM story began when his now business partner, Phil Euell, an American designer and the owner of Boot Café, asked Esu to come on board never having, at this
point, tried Esu’s cooking. “He loved my Instagram,” says Esu. “He loved my photos and was following all my friends.” Esu initially demurred. “I said no, I’m not in Paris to open a restaurant. I’m here to learn.” When Phil asked again, they sat down to talk. “I told him I’m not really a money guy. I’m not sure if I can make you money. I just want to be happy. I just want to express my feelings. He’s like, as long as we don’t lose money, just do whatever you want.
“Nobody knew me,” recalls Esu. “Because I’m not from Paris, because I don’t have much experience in Europe, people thought I came from nowhere. It was like, who is this guy? Sometimes it’s good to be the underdog.”
The daily menu at CAM is a brief, typed note of whatever Esu fancies cooking that day. A fairly typical example might include crisp seaweed and rice with tomato jam and squid; scallop and yuzu nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce); haemul sujebi (seafood soup with handmade pasta); and a slab of gochugaru (Korean chilli pepper) chocolate with olive oil. Don’t ask him to define his food. “I don’t want to be defined by one country’s cuisine because it limits me. People say to me, you get so much attention, you’re young, you’re Korean, you must feel like you represent the culture. I don’t represent anything. I don’t think I’m good enough to represent anything because it’s too much for me. That’s why CAM is very random. I don’t want to be in the category of Asian cuisine and I really don’t like the word fusion. It’s just me, it’s just my food, my feeling.” That said, he did at one point describe himself on Instagram (@esulee) as ‘Gyungsang-namdo representer’ (Ulsan in Gyeongsangnam-do in south-east South Korea being his hometown). It’s fun, he says, to play off the “very manly, very tough” reputation of the region and its powerful, even aggressive seasoning against what he describes as his “very feminine” cooking.
In 2018, Esu took a few months out for a trip back home to Korea, during which time he spent a month with the Buddhist monk Jeong Kwan, well known even outside Korea after appearing on Netflix’s Chef’s Table.
“I was really curious about Korean cuisine,” he says simply, explaining that Korean food was so heavily influenced by Japanese colonisation and later by American culture after the Korean war, that he “didn’t really know what proper Korean food was, what was behind it”.
“What I learned is that cooking takes time. There’s no such thing as an easy way. She told me to take the hardest way. She would make soup, standing in front of the soup skimming it and ladling the broth over the vegetables and simmering it for hours. Not talking, very silent. I was like, wow, that’s what I forgot – food takes time. I had totally forgotten that because I was in a commercial kitchen for a long time where we aim to make things faster, to reduce the work, to make things super easy and organised.” She took him back to the foundational tenet of what’s known as son-mat – “the flavour of the hand” as he translates it. It refers to touch and the physical act of cooking. “My food changed a little but my attitude changed a lot.”
From having relatively few ambitions, Esu’s opening up to opportunities as they present themselves. A second Paris restaurant was mooted but, reluctant to “lose that feeling of being a small place, independent, with no direction”, he’s chosen instead to open in Los Angeles later this year.
“For me, I just want to wander in Paris, getting inspired, meeting interesting people. Paris is a really good place, let’s say, to write a song, but LA is a really good place for me to perform. I need both those two energies at the same time.” He wants, metaphorically speaking, to be a singer-songwriter. “I can sing my song here on this stage and people will listen, people will come.” For this talented young chef, transatlantic stardom awaits. @importexportcam