Won Kim grew up on the northside of the city going to church, watching his Korean parents hustle, in a variety of ways, to make it in Chicago. They were a long way from their place of birth and had to figure out how to survive economically and spiritually. They built a community through finding family, faith, food and an embroidery business developed in a swap-meet-like mega mall near Rogers Park.
Unbeknownst to him, Won’s father would come to personalize hats with custom fonts for leaders of local street organizations, as well as an emergent generation of graffiti writers, who caught on, that for a few extra bucks they could adorn their hats with nom de plumes emblazoned on the side and walk around their school and neighborhoods with a bespoke, one-of-one crown.
A young Won began to befriend and follow these artists to trains and parties all over the city, exposing him to blocks and cultures not of his own. Through these relationships with other young people of different faiths, races and zip codes, he started to dabble and excel at the hip-hop cultural practice of style writing.
He took on the moniker, REVISE, because he’d see that so often, in red ink, at the top of his homework assignments in high school. Revise became one of the best abstract graffiti writers in the Midwest due to his use of vibrant colors and fluid and organic, nature like lettering, making his name with the highly respected artist collective and graffiti crew, CMW or Chicago’s Most Wanted.
As Won was developing his skills as a visual artist, he also began playing records at house parties and community gatherings, under the name Genghis Won. As a DJ, Won mixed sounds and songs that were familiar and entirely fresh to his growing audience. He found a pathway forward in clubs, dive bars and b-boy jams all over the Chicago land area.
This practice of mixing became more pronounced as Won began to show a penchant for culinary arts. As a formally trained chef, he was combining the flavors of his country and childhood into more traditional American fare.
At an industry night, at the beloved Maria’s Packaged Goods and Liquors in Bridgeport on the Southside, he made a humble Polish sausage and some kimchi into a plated, elevated and coveted dish of east meets west eatery.
The Marszewski brothers, sons of the bar maven and owner Maria, liked the idea of a concept that fused their own experience of birth, the brothers both Polish and Korean, and the neighborhood, together. They emerged with the idea for Kimski, a Korean and Polish inspired concept that brought together the pickled genius of each cuisine.
Kimski was a chance for Won to emerge in the role of head chef and designer and serve menus that represented plates he was sharing in the underground dinner parties he threw in homes and private kitchens. Won is an accomplished chef, whose profile has risen because of the vastness of his palate and high-profile appearances on The Food Network and the viral YouTube food/travel show Eatiots.
The restaurant has also become a launching pad for new, young chefs, who might be unable, in the early stages of their career, to try out their innovative approaches to food because of the burden of the overhead of their own brick and mortar. It’s not uncommon, any night of the week, to see a carousel of tattooed chefs from all walks of life serve Taiwanese, Philippine, Mexican-European fusion, and all sorts of new and delectable remixes of Chicago centered staples like the pizza puff, hot dog, and smash burger.
And in providing the space for a new generation of chefs and entrepreneurs, Won has become a mentor to the next vibrant iteration of the Chicago food scene, which in part, is marked by first and second generation, inter-faith and inter-cultural kids, finding unique ways to marry the flavors of their homeland with Chicagoland.
All the vibrancy and distinctiveness of the new food scene was on display on a below freezing evening, in January when Won hosted his annual Community Soup event at the Co-Prosperity space, a few blocks south of Kimski. The event also serves as an opportunity to see another hat Won adorns, that of civic leader, in action, embodying some of his most beloved traits as a proud citizen and cheerleader of Chicago.
Community Soup is a fundraiser for a local public school to fund arts programming and has brought in over 40 chefs, under one roof, to concoct one pot miracles.
In the space, and the spaces Won creates weekly throughout the city, it is clear he is a bridge builder and cultural leader, organizing environments that welcome calamansi and smoked salmon, crispy chicken skin and roasted parsnips, short rib pho with cinnamon and star anise and dill pickle soup.
A warm and inviting place on the Southside, where all the flavors of the city and world are on display and shining, for all of us, to delight in.
