Roy Choi

Roy Choi (born February 24, 1970) is a Korean-American chef who gained prominence as the creator of the gourmet Korean-Mexican taco truck Kogi. Choi is a chef who is celebrated for "food that isn't fancy" and is known as one of the founders of the gourmet food truck movement. In 2019, Choi began presenting a cooking series on Netflix with Jon Favreau titled The Chef Show.

Early life Choi was born in Seoul, South Korea, to South Korean father Soo Myung Choi and North Korean mother Jai Nam Choi. Choi's parents met in the U.S. but after marrying moved back to Korea. The family ended up emigrating from South Korea permanently in 1972.

Choi was raised in Los Angeles and Southern California. As Choi grew up, his parents had many businesses: a liquor store, dry-cleaning shop, a Korean restaurant, and after selling jewelry door to door, finally a successful jewelry company. His parents owned a Korean restaurant called Silver Garden in Anaheim, California for three years when he was young. Choi's mother made kimchi that was so popular within their community that they packaged it and sold it locally.

Choi attended a gifted-students program, but changed schools in his early teens when his parents achieved prosperity in the jewelry business and moved their family into a neighborhood in Orange County called Villa Park, Choi began getting into trouble, with his marks slipping as he began taking drugs and hanging out with a different crowd. The show inspired him to enroll in culinary school. "Emeril saved my life," Choi said. He enjoyed the highly structured block programs, where there was no "wiggle room." and A-Frame which conveyed the Hawaiian idea of aloha and was built in a former IHOP, at the Line Hotel in Koreatown. His cooking style fuses Mexican and Korean flavors and dishes.

In June 2013, Choi along with fellow chefs Wolfgang Puck and David Chang, convened at the Hotel Bel-Air to fuse different styles such as ggaejjang style and kochujang onto the Hotel Bel-Air menu.

In November 2013, Choi released his autobiography that is part memoir part cookbook

Choi said he didn't start out to write a book, but that he kept getting asked the same questions about his food, its flavors, and how it is prepared. While Choi doesn't see the book as social commentary, he felt it was important to show the "real deal" of the duality he felt growing up as an immigrant in the 1970s; the foods served in the restaurant were quite different from what the family ate at home. The book also talks about the culture of Los Angeles and how it has changed since the 1970s. In 2019, Favreau and Choi collaborated on a cooking show on Netflix: The Chef Show.

Time had included Choi in their TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world for 2011 Fellow chef and author Anthony Bourdain wrote that "Roy Choi first changed the world when he elevated the food-truck concept from "roach coach" to highly sought-after, ultra-hot-yet-democratic rolling restaurant."

In 2019, Choi produced and hosted a TV series, Broken Bread on Tastemade and KCET in Los Angeles.

In April 2025, Choi released The Choi of Cooking, a cookbook featuring healthier, vegetable-forward recipes.

He also appeared in a recent Netflix project with Meghan Markle that features cooking segments in which they discuss their shared experience of growing up in Los Angeles.

Personal life Choi goes by the nicknames "Papi" and "El Guapo." He maintains a blog on which he posts recipes and rants. Choi is a supporter of 3 Worlds Cafe, a South Central community coffee and smoothie shop that is a collaboration between Choi, the neighborhood-based Coalition for Responsible Community Development, fruit conglomerate Dole Packaged Foods and nearby Jefferson High School.

During his difficult teen years and later as a young adult, Choi said he had many addictions. He was addicted to crack for a short time, marijuana and gambling, which lasted three years in his early 20s. In his late 20s, he kicked his addiction to drugs and began to cook more seriously. Choi says that his current addiction is feeding people.

Publications