'A little surreal': Louisville chef Ed Lee chosen to cook White House state dinner

Louisville's celebrity chef Edward Lee is cooking for a White House state dinner on Wednesday.

On Thursday, he flies back to Louisville and jumps back into staff training.

Less than a week later, he's opening a new restaurant.

"This was not my plan," Lee told the Courier Journal with a laugh. "If it were up to me, I would have spaced this out. But this is exciting. It's an honor, and it's amazing."

The state dinner, only the second President Joe Biden has hosted, will honor South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, Kim Keon Hee.

White House social secretary Carlos Elizondo reached out to Lee about two months ago to invite him to cook for the dinner. Lee is well-known for his Korean American heritage and culinary style merging Korean and Southern cuisines.

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State dinners are not just fancy events. According to AP News, the occasion stands apart from other visits by world leaders "because of the associated pomp and pageantry that is orchestrated to celebrate ties between the United States and its close allies."

"It's a little surreal," Lee said. "I didn't really know the full scope of everything at first, the information comes out in small pieces from the White House. Then I did some more research and found that [Marcus] Samuelsson did a state dinner, and Anita Lo did a state dinner and they haven't had a guest chef for a state dinner in quite some time. So it's really quite an honor."

Previous guest chefs include culinary authority Rick Bayless, who designed the menu for Mexico in 2010, and Mario Batali, who designed the menu for Italy in 2016. Now, Lee will be among them.

Lee has one restaurant in Louisville, 610 Magnolia, and serves as culinary director for Succotash, a restaurant in Washington, D.C. He won a James Beard Award for his book "Buttermilk Graffiti," and his newest restaurant, a Korean steakhouse called Nami, will open its doors in Louisville on May 2.

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Lee said at first he was nervous about the event at first; he didn't want to cook Korean food for the President of South Korea when he has "access to the best in the world." But the White House team assured him they wanted Lee to show off the "best of American food," which is exactly in Lee's wheelhouse.

"My job is to figure out, as a Korean American, what does American food mean to me and what does Korean food mean to me?" Lee said. "And I've written about this extensively, the beautiful marriage between American food and global flavors. The food I get really excited about is a blend of two or three cultures. So we're showcasing the best of American and Southern food but with accents of Korean flavor."

The menu starts out with a duo of appetizers: a Maryland crab cake with a coleslaw of cabbage, kohlrabi, fennel and cucumber in Gochujang vinaigrette, and a chilled yellow squash soup with cured strawberries and Perilla leaf oil. The main course is a braised beef short rib dish with butter bean grits, Sorghum-glazed carrots, and pine nuts in a reduced demiglace sauce, while dessert is a banana split of lemon bar ice cream, fresh berries, mint, ginger snap cookie crumble, drizzled with Lee's recipe for Doenjang caramel sauce.

Paired wines for each course include Ferdinand Albarino "Vista Luna Vineyard" 2000, Januik Merlot "Red Mountain 2020 and Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs 2019.

Lee said he chose seasonal ingredients like yellow squash and fresh coleslaw for the menu, while adding a bit of "Korean touches" to the dishes. He also said Korean food and Southern food are similar in that both feature "a protein and a bunch of sides" in a "choose-your-own-adventure" style grazing meal. His job is to connect the dots between foods on a massive scale.

Lee recently spent two days at the White House testing recipes and plating meals, working with the White House culinary staff and first lady Jill Biden to select the menu.

"The logistics of how you create dinners for large groups is different than creating one dish 60 times over the course of six hours," Lee said. "It's a totally different approach, not just in terms of flavors but how efficiently you can plate something. You have to make it beautiful and layered but also expedient. For the White House staff though this is just one dinner. They have banquets all the time. They made me feel welcome, and it was really fun to spend a day cooking [in the White House kitchen]."

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Lee said the invitation has made him think more about his own roots, and how the very reason he lives in the United States is that the U.S. and South Korea have a diplomatic alliance. The state dinner, he said, is proof of that alliance.

"It feels very full circle to come back and do this," Lee said. "It's an amazing thing. My mom got emotional when she heard about it because for her, it's so important. How many thousands and thousands of Korean immigrants have come here? And now, her son is cooking for the White House [and the South Korean President]. It's incredible."

Reach food reporter Dahlia Ghabour at dghabour@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville chef Ed Lee tapped for White House state dinner