ExMaum chefs set sights on food hall
After nearly a year away from restaurant kitchens, the former chefs of the Michelinstarred Maum in Palo Alto are plotting their return: a more casual project opening at a highly anticipated food hall in downtown Los Altos.
Meichih and Michael Kim, who left the now closed highend Korean restaurant in August, will open a restaurant this summer at State Street Market at 160 and 170 State St. They declined to share further details but said it was a personal project that will be more casual than Maum.
The massive, 33,000squarefoot State Street Market will be the Peninsula’s first food hall, modeled after the Ferry Building in San Francisco and Oxbow Market in Napa. Los Altos Community Investments, which was founded by Anne Wojcick, the cofounder and CEO of 23andMe, developed the project.
“We’ve always wanted to do something a little more casual, a little more for everybody,” Michael Kim said. “It’s been an eyeopening time for us. We have new ideas, renewed energy and renewed passion for the industry.”
The entire market, which has been years in the making, will open this summer, a Los Altos Community Investments spokesperson confirmed. The original plans submitted to the city included a wide range of offerings, from an ice cream shop and ramen bar to a teaching kitchen and meeting rooms. The spokesperson said the lineup has since evolved — including to incorporate more outdoor dining and delivery due to the pandemic — but declined to provide further information.
The Kims previously worked in renowned restaurants including Benu and SPQR in San Francisco, Per Se in New York City and Craft in Los Angeles, where they met. In 2019, they won their first Michelin star at Maum, and the restaurant was widely praised for bringing inventive, modern Korean American food to the Bay Area. During the coronavirus shutdown, Maum shifted to takeout and retail but ultimately closed temporarily after the Kims left. It has yet to reopen.
The couple spent the past eight months at home with their young son, prioritizing his wellbeing during the pandemic over restarting their careers. In February, Michael Kim opened My Swing Studio, an indoor golf studio in Redwood City, while Meichih started selling threelayer carrot cakes and cream puff kits on Instagram.
“We wanted to just take some time and evaluate, to reassess what’s important and what the future held because the industry was so uncertain,” Michael said. “We wanted to let everything settle before we made any move.”
Their new project will be more approachable than Maum, which served $400 tasting menus and wine pairings at a 16seat communal table several nights a week.
Meichih’s temporary side hustle, meanwhile, has taken off, with her carrot cakes often selling out. Prepandemic, this cake was the Kims’ goto dinner party dessert. It’s luxurious but not overly rich, with a subtle earthiness from tonka bean instead of vanilla extract. Meichih finishes the cakes with artistic squiggles of cream cheese frosting and gold flakes.
She also recently started offering fillyourown cream puffs, inspired in part by cream puffs they grew up eating at Asian markets. Her version uses a special blend of flours to yield a delicately crunchy exterior. Meichih takes polls on Instagram to decide what cream puff flavors she’ll offer, from toasted rice and Wrecking Ball coffee to Meyer lemon. Both sweets are available for pickup in Redwood City.
She’s not sure yet whether they’ll serve the carrot cake or cream puffs at the Los Altos eatery. For now, the sweets remain a welcome respite from the pressures of a challenging year — much of it spent managing distance learning for their son, who started kindergarten fully online.
“Working women in general have had to make a lot of changes in their lives being home. I think it’s really important that people take time for themselves,” Meichih said. “For me, that was stepping away and doing what I like to do and being busy in the kitchen.”