'Wherever I would go, people ate well, it was part of the conversation. 'I think the idea of liking food was the provenance of the upper class.' 'Everybody wants to eat well'Ĭhang says it was his time spent living in Japan, as well as travelling in Korea and China, when things fell into place for him. 'Mainly because it was exclusive, and it's exclusive because it's for rich people - and that's how I think food was seen, at least from a Western perspective,' he says.

This was the early 2000s, pre-foodie culture a time when there was hesitation to spend huge amounts of money at a restaurant. ' a band of outsiders, a motley crew of misfits, and you just didn't do that,' he recalls. And that's the beautiful thing about cooking - there's more than one way to get to the end goal,' Chang told Blueprint For Living's Jonathan Green.Ĭhang describes the era in which he began his culinary career as 'the dark ages'. 'I'm a really good cook, it's just taken a long time. He ended up studying (again, to poor results) at the New York's French Culinary Institute before honing his craft and working in a number of the city's fine-dining establishments (once more, he wasn't great). In the memoir (written with Gabe Ulla), Chang also writes about anger, racism, and being part of 'the cool chefs club' that included Noma's René Redzepi. He writes in his memoir that he was 'looking to the kitchen for salvation'. As a child, Chang was a golf prodigy, but in his memoir, he describes being a middling student who often disappointed his strict parents.Īfter a failed stint at a finance firm in Manhattan, Chang decided to go to culinary school. 'The dark ages'Ĭhang's parents migrated to the US from North and South Korea in the 60s.

He also digs into his boundary-pushing approach to food and innovation, authenticity and tradition.

Then there's all his work outside of the kitchen - from his cookbooks and now-defunct magazine, to his Netflix series and his podcast.Ĭhang is now releasing a memoir, Eat A Peach, where he recounts his meteoric rise and lays bare his struggles with depression, suicidal ideation and bipolar disorder, and the role of therapy in his life. His restaurants have won Michelin stars in record-breaking time, as well as coveted positions in the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. 'It is literally one of the dumbest professions in the world, which is why I love it so much.'Ĭhang is a titan of the food world beginning with New York's Momofuku Noodle Bar, which he started in 2004 when he was just 26 years old, he birthed a culinary empire that now spans 15 restaurants, from Los Angeles to Sydney.

Eat a peach david chang