Nanro Foundation, the hansik research organization, has partnered with leading figures in New York’s dining scene to establish a local base — a move aimed at building sustained global competitiveness for K-food through the training of young chefs.
On January 30, Nanro (chaired by Chef Choi Jung-yoon) announced that it had recently set up ‘Nanro USA’ in New York and successfully held a gala dinner marking the first outcomes of its global talent program, NANRO NEXT USA.
Nanro takes its name from “Nanrohoe” (煖爐會) — the 18th-century Joseon-era gatherings at which scholars shared food and exchanged culture around a charcoal brazier. Today it has grown into a leading private-sector community with more than 600 chefs, restaurant operators and professionals from IT, finance, media and other fields, working together to build business models and advance hansik as an industry. Setting up the U.S. arm is a strategic move to transplant that internal momentum into the world’s culinary capital and anchor hansik as a distinct industrial ecosystem rather than a passing trend.
Park Jung-eun, CEO of NA:EUN Hospitality — the operator behind New York’s Atomix and Naro, and a driving force in elevating hansik’s standing — has been appointed president of Nanro USA. A founding member of Nanro, she will play a central role in leveraging New York’s dining infrastructure and networks to expand the global reach of hansik. Chef Choi Jung-yoon, Korea chair of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants (W50B), oversees the combined Korea–U.S. programs, bringing industry-wide expertise.
NANRO NEXT USA, launched together with the new entity, is best described as an investment in “human capital” — a priority Nanro considers as important as the “digital transition” or “global standardization” of hansik. The inaugural cohort features four young chefs at the forefront of the New York scene: James Beard Award nominee Suzanne Cupps, and Michelin one-star chef-owners Yuu Shimano, Fidel Caballero and Jihan Lee.
Last year the fellows visited Korea for an immersive experience of traditional jang (fermented sauces) culture at Buddhist temples and fermentation research centers. At the gala, each presented dishes reinterpreting hansik philosophy through their own national and culinary lenses.
The variety of experiments launched from the Nanro USA base reflect the foundation’s intent: to expand the “K-food universe” to local tastes and sensibilities without losing hansik’s underlying identity.
“Interest in hansik on the ground in New York is very serious and passionate,” said Park Jung-eun, president of Nanro USA. “By supporting the most-watched local chefs to experience Korea’s diverse food culture and reinterpret it in their own way, we will help hansik settle in on the global culinary stage.”
· Original (Korean): nc.press
