Today we’d like to introduce you to Mina Park and Kwang Uh.
Hi Mina and Kwang, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Kwang and I are owners of Baroo restaurant (to return) and Shiku restaurant which we just opened in Grand Central Market in downtown LA. Kwang is originally from Seoul, South Korea, went to culinary school in upstate New York at CIA and worked in NYC, Copenhagen, Italy, Spain and the Bahamas. I was born and raised in the US and lived in London, France and then Hong Kong for many years. We feel like global citizens which is one thing that connected us.
Kwang had opened Baroo in a strip mall in East Hollywood in 2015 with a former business partner. At the end of 2016, after Baroo started winning accolades and recognition, he felt he was being led by his ambition and ego and needed to re-center himself. He went to a Buddhist temple in the southern part of Korea and stayed with Jeong Kwan seunim, who later became internationally renowned from Chef’s Table. Kwang stayed there for a little over six months, and that’s where we met. I went to the temple to learn more about Korean temple cooking. Kwang is quite introverted, and so we only got to know each other over time and various temple visits and events. I was still living in Hong Kong when we met but decided to move to LA, and it was during that transition that I started working with Baroo and we got together. Things moved fast and now we’re married and have a baby, like a beautiful whirlwind.
Baroo closed at the end of 2018 and while we are working on finding the right space to reopen a new incarnation of Baroo, we have opened Shiku, which is a fast-casual stall at GCM.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being an independent restaurant owner is about accepting that it won’t be a smooth road. Closing Baroo in 2018 was a difficult time, though ultimately, we believe the path we are on is the right one. Then we were supposed to open Shiku in April 2020, but with the pandemic, we put it on hold. We spent a lot of time considering what we should do with our restaurant business, do we take on outside investors or even just get a salaried position from a group, we wondered whether we should stay in LA or go back to Korea where we have family. We have a baby and juggling childcare during a pandemic and opening a restaurant was a whole new set of issues we had never dealt with before.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Baroo was known for its experimental spirit and focus on fermentation. Baroo also strove to provide fine dining level techniques at everyday prices. Our most popular dish, an out of the box interpretation of kimchi fried rice that had basmati rice, pineapple kimchi, gremolata and purple potato crisps, using organic ingredients as much as possible, was $9. Those prices were only possible because there were no employees and no money was spent on anything else like decor, service or location. When we closed, one loyal customer said that he felt like we were doing charity work. We don’t think what we did was charity because people paid hard-earned money for our food. But accessibility is a priority for us. We want to cook delicious, high-quality food that is accessible to many. We try to run our business so that we take care of our employees and also be good value and inclusive, not exclusive. We also want Shiku to be connected to our community here in Los Angeles, and in particular, be in a position to contribute to issues we care about like food security and racial justice. Shiku, in Korean, means the people you share food with, the people you break bread with. We hope Shiku embodies that spirit of community and compassion.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
We love the diversity of communities in LA. We don’t have a lot of free time, but when we do have time, we like to just drive around different areas. We love food, obviously, so we usually explore through culinary experiences whether it’s in the San Gabriel Valley or Sawtelle or Boyle Heights. Since neither of us are from LA originally, we are constantly discovering things new to us. It feels like we’re taking day-long holiday road trips which is refreshing.
I think the thing we struggle with most in LA, but maybe it’s just contemporary culture, is the self-promotion and VIP culture that’s prevalent. A lot of people want to be stars, whether it’s a culinary star, social media or a Hollywood star and treated like a VIP. And people treat you differently based on whether they think you’re useful to them or not. There can be a shallowness and insincerity to some people’s interactions with you that we are not used to honestly. We gravitate towards people who are just doing their thing quietly and who approach life with an open and sincere heart.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.shikulosangeles.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shikulosangeles
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shikulosangeles/
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/shikulosangeles
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/shiku-los-angeles
Image Credits:
Photo of Mina Park and Kwang Uh by Jeff Newton. Photos of Shiku and the food by Jakob Layman.
