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Tatler Asia
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Tatler Asia
10 Korean cooking shows worth bingeing
2. 'Chef & My Fridge' ('Please Take Care of My Refrigerator') (2014-present) In this beloved variety-meets-cook-off show, celebrity guests bring their actual home fridges (leftovers and all) and elite chefs must whip up a five-star dish from the odds and ends. Kimchi pancake with passionfruit vinaigrette? Why not. The fridges are chaotic, the hosts are sharp and the food somehow always hits the mark. Korean cooking shows are always a bit wild, but this takes the cake. 3. 'Stars' Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant' (2019-present) In this delicious celebrity showdown, stars compete to develop the next hit convenience store meal. It's absurd and MSG-level addictive. Watching celebs like Jung Il-woo or Lee Seung-gi get very serious about gimbap presentation is the kind of guilty pleasure we fully endorse. Bonus: the winning dishes get mass-produced and sold nationwide. 4. 'Korean Food Made Simple' (2014) Hosted by Korean-American chef Judy Joo, this one's for the home cooks who don't just want to watch food; they want to recreate it. With sleek visuals and recipes that balance traditional flavours with modern flair, it's part travelogue, part how-to and totally doable (with some gochujang and patience). 5. 'Three Meals a Day' (2014-2020) Camping meets cooking in this cooking show where the menu depends on what you catch, forage or haggle for. Each season sends a trio of celebrities to a rural or seaside location where they must cook every meal with minimal help. Firewood must be chopped, fish must be caught and rice must be coaxed from ancient pots. Cha Seung-won is the surprise culinary MVP here. It turns out he can cook everything. Three Meals a Day is rustic, charming and the ultimate slow TV. 6. 'Delicious Rendezvous' (2019-2021) Korean cooking shows almost always double as variety shows. The goal here is to highlight lesser-known local ingredients from Korean provinces, then turn them into mass-market hits. Starring Kim Hee-chul and chef Baek Jong-won, it's a blend of cooking, PR and regional pride, with plenty of chaotic shopping mall taste tests to keep things fun. Farm-to-table? More like farm-to-fame. 7. 'The Backpacker Chef' (2022-2024) Stars like Baek Jong-won and Ahn Bo-hyun travel to unexpected locations—think fire stations, army bases, remote villages—and are given mystery missions to cook massive meals with limited tools. It's part survival show, part pop-up banquet—and watching celebs sous-chef under pressure is surprisingly therapeutic. 8. 'Culinary Class Wars' (2024-ongoing) Welcome to the cooking show where elite chefs battle it out like it's the Olympics of plating. With Michelin and top chefs battling up-and-comers, this high-stakes competition delivers everything: stress sweats, sous-vide drama and enough kitchen egos to sauté a small army. There's teamwork, rivalry and genuinely stunning food. Who knew tension could taste so good? Don't miss: Why are people obsessed with Netflix's latest reality cooking competition, 'Culinary Class Wars'? 9. 'The Best Cooking Secrets' (2000-2020) Airing since October 2, 2000, The Best Cooking Secrets holds the title of South Korea's longest-running cooking programme. The 30-minute show focuses on teaching viewers how to prepare practical, everyday meals. Each week features a chef or celebrity who demonstrates different dishes. The host tastes the final product, offering insights and personal reactions. 10. 'Cook King Korea' (2014-2015) Above 'Cook King Korea' (Photo: SBS) This show pits celebrity chefs and challengers against each other in rounds of intense cook-offs, culminating in a final showdown judged by food experts. Cook King Korea has serious 'white coat tension' energy, with close-up shots of sweating brows, sizzling pans and countdown clocks. As far as Korean cooking shows, it's pretty standard, but we give it bonus points for the epic orchestral music.
Korea Herald
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
The secret ingredient in Ryu Soo-young's culinary success
A childhood passion led Ryu to redefine his career — balancing life on screen and in the kitchen Actor Ryu Soo-young wasn't always known for his cooking skills. He debuted in 1998, and for years he was best known for his strong, charismatic performances on the big screen and in Korean dramas. But between memorizing scripts and delivering lines, he has long harbored a love for the kitchen. And what he thought would remain as a personal passion has now fully launched into a second career, turning him into an unexpected cooking influencer. Though he describes acting as his "first love," Ryu has found a unique balance between his two passions and careers. "They complement each other," he said in an interview with The Korea Herald. His earliest memory of cooking dates back to childhood. As a boy, he was drawn to the cookbooks scattered around his home. "There was also a baking book. With ingredients like flour and baking powder, I, as a kid, made my first dough and put it in the microwave. It wasn't supposed to puff up, but luckily, it did,' he recalled. 'I remember my parents eating that plain white dough and telling me, 'It's delicious.'' That moment planted a seed, and by sixth grade, he had taught himself how to bake proper cookies. Ryu's passion for cooking took a professional turn in 2020 when he began showcasing his own recipes on KBS's 'Stars' Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant.' Since then, he has created over 300 recipes, which often feature clever shortcuts to make cooking more convenient. Some of them will be published in his first cookbook, set for release around May. He explained that among his many recipes, the ones people love most are timeless staples — dishes you never get tired of. 'My jeyuk bokkeum (spicy Korean pork bulgogi) recipe video has over 7.9 million views, and the gimbap one has more than 5 million. These are everyday staples that the whole family can enjoy, and they're very easy to make,' he said. He noted that his lack of formal culinary education and his experience learning through trial and error have helped him create more accessible recipes. 'If I had learned everything at once and taken shortcuts, I wouldn't understand the common mistakes people make. But because I've failed before, I can guide them — telling them what to avoid and what to focus on to get it right,' he said. Also, his tendency to cook with everyday ingredients is another reason that made his recipes popular. 'When I go grocery shopping, my biggest concern is always cost. That's why I use chicken a lot — per kilogram, it's usually the cheapest meat available. Cheap but tasty — that's the key.' K-food ambassador Ryu now looks beyond Korea, envisioning a role for himself in making Korean cuisine more recognized globally and enjoyed by people around the world. "I believe in the power of food," he said. "When you like the same food as someone else, you instantly feel a connection." He used Thai food as an example of how cuisine shapes cultural perception. 'For Koreans, Thai food feels familiar. We all love rice noodles, and that affects how we see the country. But when it comes to Laos or Cambodia, many Koreans don't know much about their cuisine.' Among his many efforts, he delivered a lecture at Stanford University on the value of Korean food. "Through my experiences abroad, I've realized that people's understanding of Korean food has deepened compared to the past. Now is the right time to promote it further," he said. "There's a perception that Korean food is just spicy and sweet, but it can also be incredibly healthy. It's rich in vegetables, and I want to highlight that." Ryu also wants to spotlight Korean sauces. "Using Korean sauce, I once cooked with guinea pig and alpaca in Peru for a TV show," he recounted. "The galbijjim (Spicy braised beef short ribs) sauce really blended with the ingredients, soaking into them and creating this perfect harmony. Everyone loved it." Ryu dismisses concerns that his rise as a cooking influencer might negatively impact his acting career. "In the past, there was this idea that actors had to remain mysterious and revered. But that's nonsense. Acting is just a job," he said. "Nowadays, not only in Korea but even in Hollywood, being a familiar face in another field doesn't hurt your acting career." In fact, his culinary image may have helped land him a role in the Netflix series 'Queenmaker.' "The director told me that my persona as a kind husband who cooks for his family was precisely why he cast me," he revealed. "He said, 'I was curious — what would it be like if that gentle man held a knife in his hand?'" ssh@
