Kjun – one chef's Seoul-to-New Orleans story on a Lexington Avenue plate

On Lexington Avenue in Midtown East, KJUN serves a menu that reads like an autobiography written in two cuisines. Chef Jae Jung grew up in Seoul, then spent her formative cooking years in New Orleans, and the restaurant is, in her own words, her life story told through food. The dining room is unpretentious and busy, built for diners who want soy-marinated deviled eggs and gochujang fried chicken on the same table as gumbo and jjajangmyun. It holds a place among the Selected restaurants in the MICHELIN Guide, recognition for a kitchen that treats Korean fermentation and Louisiana soul food not as a gimmick but as two halves of one genuine story. Jung, a Top Chef alumna who built KJUN from a basement catering kitchen during the pandemic, now runs a full-service restaurant with a bar, lunch and dinner service, and room for private parties of up to fifty.

01The room and the setting

KJUN now operates from two addresses. The original room at 154 East 39th Street, where the project first found a permanent home, is reserved for private events only. Regular service, lunch, dinner, pick-up and sit-down, now runs from 334 Lexington Avenue, a Midtown East address that also accommodates private parties of up to fifty guests.

The restaurant is not BYOB; it runs a full-service bar with a curated selection of liquor, wine and beer, a deliberate step up from the delivery-only format Jung started with. The atmosphere stays close to its roots: fast, warm and unfussy, built for a neighbourhood crowd as much as for visitors tracking down Korean-Cajun cooking.

02The chef

Jae Jung left Seoul for New York in 2009 to train at the Culinary Institute of America. After graduation she moved to New Orleans, where she worked in the kitchens of August, Domenica and Herbsaint, and alongside Leah Chase at Dooky Chase, absorbing the techniques and rhythms of Louisiana soul food. Back in New York, she worked in some of the city's most prestigious Michelin-starred kitchens, including Oceana, Le Bernardin under Eric Ripert, the NoMad and, most recently, as sous chef at Café Boulud.

Insider tip

Not BYOB; full bar on site. Groups over six should email ahead.

In 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, Jung launched KJUN as a delivery-only start-up, prepping, cooking and running deliveries herself from a basement catering kitchen before going home to wash the dishes. The pop-up's following grew quickly enough that she opened her first retail location in Midtown Manhattan in autumn 2022. Jung has since competed on Bravo's Top Chef and continues to appear regularly as a judge on Food Network programming.

03The cooking

KJUN's menu sits exactly where its name promises: the point where Korean pantry staples meet the Cajun and Creole repertoire Jung learned in New Orleans. Featured dishes include a Cajun-spiced galbi brisket served with grits, beef jus, cherry tomato kimchi, pickled daikon, radish, provolone, cilantro and chives, and a seafood jjajangmyun built on japchae noodles with shrimp, calamari and fried oysters in a fermented black bean and squid-ink sauce.

Other plates fold the two traditions together just as tightly: a chicken and andouille sausage gumbo, an okra kimchi, and soy-marinated deviled eggs finished with chicken cracklin'. The kitchen also turns out green tomato kimchi and a gochujang and buttermilk marinated fried chicken that has become one of the menu's signature orders.

04What to order

On the current menu, the Kimchi Jambalaya and the Seafood Jjajangmyun are the dishes regulars point to first. The menu also runs to a Chicken & Andouille Gumbo, Nola BBQ Shrimp, a Blue Crab Curry and a rack of BBQ Pork Ribs.

For dessert, there is the Goguma Pecan Pie, built on Korean sweet potato, and a dish simply called Strawberry Yummy. Starters worth flagging include the cornmeal-crusted fried oysters, the Japchae Boudin Balls with smoked anchovy aioli, and a watermelon salad with blackened chicken in spicy yuzu.

05When to go and booking

KJUN at 334 Lexington Avenue serves Tuesday to Friday from 11:30am to 3pm and again from 4:30pm to 10:30pm, Saturday 11:30am to 10:30pm, and Sunday 11:30am to 8:30pm; it is closed Monday. Reservations for parties of six or fewer run through Resy, while larger groups are asked to email the restaurant directly to arrange private dining for up to fifty.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.