Fine dining food just a click, call away
Chef on delivers affordable fine food to people’s homes
Dining is an important ritual. Eating together means one is willing to share food, the dishes, which means a lot.
In the connected and busy Korean society, almost everything is just a click or a call away.
Kim Jung-gong, CEO of the online-to-offline (O2O) food delivery business Chef on, believes fine dining food should also be. Started barely eight weeks ago, Chef on delivers fine food directly to people’s homes on the belief that people should be able to enjoy high-quality, delicious food at relatively affordable prices.
“For me, food brings people together and creates memories. I have always thought that food comforts people,” Kim said.
Kim, a Seoul native, has always enjoyed food. His father could not digest artificial condiments so his mother had to cook well, and cook well she did. Kim said many of his friends came over to his house to enjoy his mother’s cooking. His mother also suffers from diabetes so Kim is picky about what goes into his food.
So for his startup, Chef on, which he started with financing from Korean accelerator The Ventures he partnered with three Korean chefs: Choi Seung-gwang, who has been cooking French food for a long time; Chung Ho-gyun, who is known for his experimental spirit and makes the pasta with Chef on; and Lim Hoe-seon, who is known for her healthy Mediterranean dishes. Together, the three chefs, with the help of four cooks, have developed some 12 dishes, including tiramisu. They make the dishes, including the sauces, from scratch and only upon order.
“At Chef on, we make our own sauces, and we start cooking when the order comes in. Our goal is to make the delivery so that the food remains hot,” Kim said. To keep the prepared food warm, it is packed in cases that can go into the microwave or on the grill for an hour at most.
Kim, who studied chemical engineering at Hanyang University and previously worked in leading companies such as Samsung C&T, Lazard and LG Electronics, also has a broad wealth of experience with fine dining. When he was studying for his MBA at the University of California, Berkeley, he dined at fine restaurants in the area such as Chez Panisse. He said he was also inspired by the book “Setting the Table” by Danny Meyer, who created Union Square Cafe in New York, and more recently, the burger chain Shake Shack.
“This is food from a high-end restaurant that ends up on your table, instead of on a restaurant table, at a reasonable price,” Kim said.
The Chef on menu includes a la carte French dishes, such as beef bourguignon (35,000 won) and chicken roulade (19,000 won), that you may otherwise find only in multi-course meals at top French restaurants. The chicken roulade, one of the most popular dishes at Chef on, comes with barley risotto, pesto and broccoli and asparagus, Kim said.
“These dishes take a long time to prepare, but the chefs put in the hours, and you can have the dishes delivered to your home,” he said.
The main and pasta dishes are delivered with salad. The company delivers orders priced at 30,000 won and above free of charge. There are three ways to order food from Chef on: from its website (www.chefon.kr), through the dingdong app and over the phone (02-567-7670).
While Chef on currently services only the southern Seoul districts of Gangnam and Seocho, it plans to extend service to other neighborhoods, such as Jamsil, Mok-dong and Gwanghwamun, as well as to Pangyo and Bundang in Gyeonggi Province. But Kim’s real ambition is for the business to expand beyond Korean borders; he wants to launch Chef on in such Asian markets as Hong Kong and Singapore, where the customers are more accustomed to paying higher prices for good food and where there is a larger pool of consumers for fine dining to begin with. If and when these ideas come to fruition, he wants to facilitate a chef exchange, between Korea and, perhaps, Hong Kong, and subsequently introduce fusion menus.
Kim believes he is lucky to have been able to start the service in the 1.5 trillion won, highly advanced domestic delivery food market. “So many Korean people have food delivered to their homes and places of work, but I haven’t really seen food that comes up to our standards. I am also fortunate that there is a heightened interest in chefs,” he said. For those thinking about prices, Kim said Chef on meals are priced starting at 30,000 won through 49,000 won with the option of adding extras, a price range that is on par with Chinese food delivery.
He said so far, 50 percent of their customers have been repeat customers. But the business is still in its early days, and he hopes to add more dishes and more chefs to Chef on.
“Dining is an important ritual. Eating together means one is willing to share food, the dishes, which means a lot,” Kim said. “But food is about your lifestyle; it reflects your values in life, I think.”