Chef Spotlight: Executive Chef Lenny Moon of HORTUS NYC

Executive Chef Lenny Moon grew up in the restaurant industry in South Korea, as his family has owned and operated a restaurant for thirty-five years. As he spent his formative years in and around the restaurant, this is where his culinary journey began. Venturing out on his own, he began his studies at Han-Sol Cooking Academy in Seoul and went on to attend The French Culinary Institute in New York, and the New York Bartending School. After graduating, Chef Lenny's first foray into the American culinary industry was under Chef Jung Sik Yim at two-Michelin starred Jungsik where he honed his skills and where his own personal style of cooking began to emerge. For Hortus, he is free to create his own imaginative style of cuisine.

Broadwayworld.com had the opportunity to interview Chef Lenny Moon about his career and Hortus NYC.

What was your earliest interest in cooking?

When I was young, I really loved burger fried chicken, and pork cutlet, my family was always cooking different things and I love that. As a child, whenever we visited my aunt's house she was always making pancakes or special dishes and creating food was always interesting to me. Not many people were eating this kind of food in Korea at the time so I found it very interesting.

Who were some of your career mentors?

I had a friend named Daniel who introduced me the idea of culinary school when I was working at a hotel so I came to New York to experience all the food and cooking and enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America and learned the fundamentals of French cooking. I trained under Chef Jungsik Yim at Jungsik and I sometimes talk to him about cooking, he mentors me too. The general manager at Barnjoo - Ray- is also a kind of mentor, we're always talking about restaurant dishes and cooking.

What culinary styles have influenced your career?

I learned the French style at FCI and I'm very influenced by Spanish and Mediterranean foods and styles. I'm also influenced by Korean food and Asian fusion -especially the more popular and trendy foods.

What do you consider the most distinguishing features of your work as a chef? When you have a love for food, you can make really good food and it's my philosophy. You have to think of your love for your family and passions and put it into your food. Rather than just working for money, you have to put passion into your food. That would be one distinguishing feature of my food.

Another would be the Ability to explore other countries food and infuse it into Asian food. I grew up eating Korean food so the ability to bring western styles to Asian cooking is also a distinguishing aspect of my work. Unlike with Asian food, much flavor doesn't work in western food, so I came up with a lot of dishes by infusing the styles & tasting them.

What is your favorite meal?

Korean barbecue is my favorite food. I actually love all barbecue, especially in the summer. When I cook for myself, I like to keep it simple and delicious. At home I eat a lot of pasta and vegetables and I make a lot of Italian food. Surprisingly, I don't really cook Korean food at home.

Tell me a little bit about your restaurant for our readers.

Hortus is very much a good restaurant, it's very good to me and we're very good to our customers. Our manager Suhum Jang is very good to me and has a great vision for Asian food and our cuisine. We strive to have the best contemporary Asian food and not many Korean restaurants make all the dishes or include all the flavors we do and since more people are coming in, we're getting to introduce our cooking to more and more people.

We know you have a new spring menu. Can you tell us about it?

When creating this menu I was thinking about Mediterranean food and thought that it could come together with Asian food to make it more flavorful and celebrate the seasons. We wanted to include more vegetables and really focus on the flavor. Suhum loves Asian flavor and kept asking me, "can you put more Asian flavor in this?" until we got it right. People especially love the octopus and all of the different flavors. Everyone should come in and try all of our different dishes and different flavors.

Hortus NYC is located at 271 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016. They are open for dining in, take-out and delivery. For more information, hours, and menus, please visit https://www.hortusnyc.com/ and call 646.858.3784.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Hortus NYC

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