Joining the NANRO USA Fellowship as part of the 2025 cohort, Chef Jihan Lee is a Korean-American chef who grew up in Portland, Oregon. After moving to New York, he cooked through Sushisamba, Momoya, Eventi, and Morimoto before reaching Masa — the only three-Michelin-starred sushi restaurant in the country — where he served as Corporate Sous Chef, absorbing the world's highest bar for sushi hands-on. In 2019, he opened Nami Nori in New York with Taka Sakaeda and Lisa Limb, partners from his Masa days; the brand has since expanded beyond its New York flagship into New Jersey and Florida.
The question he holds onto every day is a simple one. How do you keep faith with the traditions of sushi while remaking them into something a guest can casually return to, week after week? His answer takes the shape of the open temaki hand roll — a rigorous fine-dining sensibility rebuilt into a much more everyday form. As a Korean-American chef, meeting Korea's culinary landscape again on this NANRO USA Fellowship visit carried its own particular weight.
