Judy Joo: “Seoul Bird still hasn’t seen a day of normal trade in the UK”
How did the opportunity to take Seoul Bird to Vegas come about?
I had an introduction from a friend I used to work with when I was executive chef at the Playboy Club in London. He had gone back to Vegas, and he recommended me to a colleague of his who was looking for new brands to curate a food hall in the Aria Resort and Casino called Proper Eats. We met up with a company called A Perfect Bite and they loved the food we do; and the rest is history. Vegas is a very appealing place to take Seoul Bird for its first overseas location. It’s a macrocosm of city life that’s expanding all the time and is inundated with people.
Operationally, will Seoul Bird in the US be the same as it is in the UK?
The restaurant will operate under franchise, which is different to our two UK restaurants [located in Westfield London and Canary Wharf’s Jubilee Place]. And obviously the supply chain will be slightly different. We’re having to change some of the specifications, but the core techniques and recipes will remain the same. The chickens in the US are much bigger than the ones we get in the UK, so we’re having to look at changing the marination times. As for the menu, we’re starting out with a tighter selection of just seven or eight items; and as we get our legs on, we’re going to add more. But the dishes themselves will remain the same.
Restaurants in the UK are currently facing struggles with staffing and soaring energy price rises. How does this compare to the challenges with opening a restaurant in the US?
The US doesn’t have an energy crisis like the UK does, and, actually, Vegas has a very strong local workforce. The city runs on hospitality. People move there to work in hospitality. And it’s all union, so they’re paid very well. There is a bit of a labour shortage leftover from the Covid pandemic, but as the economy is coming back so are the workers.
Korean cuisine has long been part of the US dining scene, but it’s only in recent years that its prominence in the UK has begun to grow. Why is that?
It feels like everyone has something Korean on their menu these days. It’s insane. I can go to fast-casual places or high-end restaurants, and there’s almost always something with kimchi on the menu; or a Korean-style barbecue dish. It’s propelled by a number of drivers. K-pop is one of them. Another is all the Korean dramas in the cinema and on TV that people have become addicted to. On social media I get so many questions from people about what people are eating in certain films and TV shows. It’s created a little bit of cultural voyeurism. People are so incredibly curious about Korean culture, and they are literally eating it up.
Do you expect to see further proliferation of Korean cuisine and restaurant concepts in the UK in the years to come?
For sure. The UK has only literally scratched the surface when it comes to the depth and breadth of Korean food. Most people only know kimchi, gochujang, Korean barbecue – things like that. But we have so many regional specialties. We have four distinct seasons and with that comes a tradition of very, very hot soups and stews in the winter time: and cooling dishes in the summer. No one’s really properly exploring the diversity of Korean cuisine yet in the UK.
What plans do you have to further grow Seoul Bird in the UK?
Andrew Hale [Seoul Bird co-founder and COO] and I opened Seoul Bird with the intent to grow it as quickly as we can. Obviously, the pandemic put a big dampener in our plans. We launched in the summer of 2020, and we’ve still not seen a day of normal trade. Both our restaurants are in shopping centres and footfall is still down by double digit percentages in both properties compared to 2019. But in the long term we’re definitely looking to grow the brand. We want to franchise it.
