When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Master Class, the streaming platform where anyone can learn from the world’s best across a wide range of subjects, today announced that modern food truck pioneer and beloved chef Roy Choi will teach a class on intuitive cooking. In his class, Choi will teach MasterClass members how to cook from the heart, use and trust their instincts, work with the equipment they already have and create depth of flavor so they make meals that bring people together. He’ll also teach them how to make some of his favorite dishes, including the world-famous Kogi taco. Choi’s class is now available exclusively on MasterClass, where subscribers get unlimited access to all 150+ instructors with an annual membership.
“Roy is the founder of the modern food truck movement,” said David Rogier, founder and CEO of MasterClass. “Roy’s class is so approachable, teaching MasterClass members how to cook with what’s already in their kitchen and cook with instinct. He also offers revelatory insights into his approach to cooking and how he develops flavor.”
Relying on instincts
As a Korean immigrant raised in Southern California, Choi shows members his “American not fusion” food philosophy and encourages them to rely on instincts and senses over recipes while cooking. Choi breaks down his “mother sauces” and signature dishes—including, for the first time ever, the secrets to his world-famous Kogi taco, as well as dumplings, carnitas and kimchi tuna melts and fried rice—then empowers members to use their favorite ingredients to make them their own. He walks members through the items he likes to keep on hand at all times, which is a blend of everyday ingredients, and teaches them how to pare down their equipment list to the bare essentials through his “philosophy of one.” He teaches how to marinate and grill kalbi beef and vegetables, make Kogi slaw and put together the taco that launched a revolution. MasterClass members will leave Choi’s class inspired and motivated to think intuitively in the kitchen as they bring new flavors, ideas and people together.
“I’m a Korean-born, L.A.- and O.C.-raised kid at heart who loves the good, messy, delicious, real American food I grew up with,” Choi said. “And as a chef, I’ve realized that all food tastes best when you honor your own cultural influences—no matter where they come from—and make the food you love. In my class, I’m sharing my secrets so that members can get comfortable with experimenting in the kitchen and creating dishes with their own personality.”
Helped spark the modern food truck movement
Choi was born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in Southern California. He helped spark the modern food truck movement through Kogi BBQ by merging food and social media with community and honoring the street food culture that laid the path before him. He is the host of the Emmy- and James Beard Award–winning series Broken Bread on Tastemade/KCET, which explores complex social justice issues through the lens of food. On a global scale, Choi cohosts the full-blown Netflix cooking series The Chef Show, along with Jon Favreau. In 2010 Food & Wine magazine named Choi, who is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, “Best New Chef.” In 2013, his cookbook-memoir, L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food, was a New York Times bestseller. In 2016, he was named a Time 100 most influential person, and in 2017, LocoL received the first-ever Los Angeles Times “Restaurant of the Year” award. Choi resides in Los Angeles where he is a voice and advocate for street food culture past, present and future, and the co-owner, cofounder and chef of Kogi BBQ, Chego!, Best Friend at Park MGM Las Vegas, and LocoL.
MORE VIDEOS: Discussing the runner’s mindset with marathoner Joan Benoit Samuelson