August 2nd, 2020
11:58AM
“Hey! What perfect timing!” I shouted out as Arnold and I were walking towards Bessou, coming from opposite directions.
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I reached out to him the week before, asking if we could meet and chat more about his project, With Warm Welcome. To be honest, this was actually the first time we were going to hang out one on one. The first and only time we met before then was at Atomix on 104 East 30th St. I was grabbing drinks there with my friend Thuy and Daniel, while Arnold was working as the Maitre D’. They were all actually friends and were well acquainted with one another. Upon first impression, I absolutely admired how Arnold kept a professional aura as he moved about the restaurant, while still keeping us entertained from time to time.
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We decided to meet at Bessou since he had to drop off a framed illustration of the restaurant to the owner, Maiko Kyogoku. I also have never dined there before! It was a restaurant that had a modern take on Japanese comfort food.
As you know, because of COVID-19, dining could not be done indoors in the restaurants. Restaurants were still getting used to the whole outdoor seating lifestyle. We chose a table to sit and were given a menu. On the menu was the Bessou logo, and two QR codes. Scanning the codes on our phones brought us to the menus of the day. I loved this idea as we didn’t even have to touch the menu.
We put in our orders:
2 Sake Sunrises - sake, pineapple, grenadine
Sesame Noodle Salad - cold ramen noodles, pickled beech mushrooms and tomatoes, edamame, cucumber, tossed in a spicy miso tahini sauce
Fried Chicken Karaage Sando - Bessou’s crispy fried chicken Karaage with spicy mayo and pickles on a Martin’s potato bun
Tonkatsu Sando - Panko-breaded pork cutlet, lettuce, miso barbecue, scallion aioli on a Martin’s potato bun
And so we chatted and ate and chatted.
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Who are you?
I’m Arnold Byun, founder of With Warm Welcome. I’ve been in NYC for the past 7 years, mainly in the hospitality industry with roles ranging from restaurant management, pre-openings, and consulting for emerging F&B brands.
Tell me about your relationship with this industry.
I’ve always loved this industry. A huge reason why I fell in love with hospitality is due to the constant interaction with people. There’s definitely an instant gratification factor tied into what we do. For example, serving a guest and visually witnessing their instant feedback on their face - a smile. I got hooked on that. I thought, wow, I can do something seemingly small, but potentially create a big impact. I soon realized, the more thoughtful you can be, the more fulfilling the line of work. For me, hospitality is much bigger than simply hotels, tourism, and restaurants. It’s a way of life, a philosophy.
Early on, there were internal struggles from how the industry was viewed, especially through the lens of my immigrant father. Not to generalize, but from what I’ve observed, it seemed that many Asian parents moved all the way to the states and found themselves in restaurant work because they didn’t necessarily have a choice. Due to assimilation, this previous generation had to survive by adapting their native cooking to fit the American palate. I hate to say it, but often these dishes were dumbed down to become more familiar and approachable. To no one’s fault. Our generation, I feel, is passionate in particular about moving culture and we feel that it’s been misrepresented and appropriated along the way. It’s not about profit or survival for us, but about purpose. Purpose over profit. It starts with that core ideology and everything else follows. Many who grew up here, like myself, realize they can bridge this gap and represent their culture in a way that’s very contemporary and approachable, without losing the identity.
How did you personally get into it?
Through my dad. My dad was born and raised in Korea, entirely a self-made entrepreneur. My parents divorced and soon my amazing home cook mom was out of the picture. After the divorce, my dad really wanted my brother and me to have a nice meal at home. Not just instant ramen. He has an “all-in” sort of personality. It’s all or nothing for him. He decided to go to culinary school, while simultaneously running his shipping and logistics business in Korea.
I respect him and love him a lot. To see that transformation and career change firsthand was very empowering as his son. He was able to cook for us, and provide in a maternal way that he couldn’t do before. He fell in love with that idea and because he was able to share this emotional exchange with his sons, he figured he could do so with others. And that’s how he got into the restaurant business.
Naturally, my dad became a workaholic and he would always be at the restaurant. After school, I would always be there just to hang out or to spend time with him, but honestly I wanted to do something to help. I asked if I could, and he jokingly responded, “Just go to the back and wash dishes.” So I jumped back there and started. I don’t know, but I kind of fell in love with it. Maybe it was just putting my head down and focusing on one task and doing it to the best of my ability. Eventually I got curious about all the other roles. I was a cashier, busser, server, and even got to make desserts in the back.
My dad gave me a lot of leadership lessons that I’m really thankful for to this day. You shouldn’t make anyone do something that you personally wouldn’t do yourself. That’s always stuck with me, and one of my guiding principles during my managerial tenure in restaurants.
What was your career path like?
I majored in Hospitality Management at NYU. I knew from the get go that I wanted to be a restaurant manager. Fortunately, I was at the right place at the right time and during my junior year in college, I became the Assistant Restaurant Manager at Bouley, a Michelin-starred classic French restaurant down in Tribeca. Even though I felt inexperienced, I knew if I put my heart and soul into the restaurant, I could make something out of my time. The thing about being a manager in NYC is that every company is constantly searching for good, competent people! I was getting scouted. From there, I went to an upscale Chinese restaurant called Hakkasan in Times Square. And then played a part in the pre-opening team for Soho House in their first public restaurant, Cecconi’s in Dumbo, Brooklyn. I soon wanted to get schooled and learn from the very best and decidedly spent time in the dining room at Eleven Madison Park, taking on an array of roles and responsibilities. My most recent tenure was with Atomix, a fine-dining restaurant that is inspired by Korean cultures and traditions.
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And then out of nowhere we got a huge platter of Bessou’s Banana Hotcakes Foster! This was Japanese-style pancakes with bananas, black sesame, black sugar syrup, and salted miso caramel ice cream. This heat from the hotcakes went terrifically with the cold ice cream melting down from the top. We both agreed that the sides of the hotcakes were crisped to perfection. It was a beautiful ASMR crunch as our top and bottom set of teeth bit through. Thinking about it, I can still feel the sweetness overtaking my tastebuds.
It was definitely a treat from Maiko and the Bessou team. Thank you!
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Can you tell me more about With Warm Welcome?
With Warm Welcome is a community, where we welcome Asian-American restaurateurs, chefs, founders, and tastemakers to engage in conversations around culinary entrepreneurship, hyphenated identity, and the importance of food culture. I follow food media avidly and during my time in restaurants, I always found it problematic that the restaurants receiving exposure were recycled and repurposed lists. Once you made it “in,” you were guaranteed a spot on all the lists. I wanted to see more Asian restaurants. I wanted to see more Asian operators, owners, and chefs. It’s been a year and so far we’re on track to record and publish 50 episodes and have coordinated a few pop-up dinners. We hope to progress further into hopefully video and other media platforms as well. If our community is not receiving the overdue exposure and respect, I might as well create it for us.
Shot by Diane Kang.
https://www.instagram.com/akoreangirleats/
What’s the most recent project that you’ve worked on?
Shot by Diane Kang.
https://www.instagram.com/akoreangirleats/
A one-night only pop-up dinner featuring guests that graced my podcast called Prix Fixe for Youth. I corralled chefs and restaurateurs to benefit a non-profit called Apex for Youth, where they empower Asian-American youth, by providing access to educational opportunities and mentorship programs. The idea came about as I had invited chefs from differing backgrounds. I realized the common thread amongst all of us was nostalgia, memory. Everyone grew up somewhere, and ate something growing up that has a lasting memory well into adulthood. Food triggers a certain point in life. The idea was to present dishes from their respective childhood. It didn’t need to be fancy or overdone. Instead, I wanted it to be approachable comfort food. I think the idea of fine-dining is so antiquated and hits a very specific clientele. Despite experience in that arena, I’m much more passionate about creating an accessible space and event that has a bigger reach. Even though we called it a prix-fixe, which often is associated with fine-dining, I wanted to combat that stereotype that a prix-fixe menu had to be this stiff, fancy multi-course dinner.
For the event in February, I curated an all-female cast. It consisted of 3 restaurants, each led by a female duo. Maiko Kyogoku and Emily Yuen from Bessou, Yen Ngo and Hannah Wong from Van Da, Moonlynn Tsai and Kyo Pang from Kopitiam, respectively representing Japanese, Vietnamese, and Malaysian cuisines. Since there were 6 individuals, it was a 6-course tasting menu. Everyone presented a childhood-inspired dish, with a description of why they chose it. This description was on a square card that the guests could collect and take home. On the cards were QR codes that would bring them to the associated podcast episodes featuring them.
Has COVID-19 been tough for you?
It was so tough in the beginning. I took a month off from social media, and didn’t talk to anyone. I just shut myself down. I really needed to go through it on my own. I spent so much time and effort into this industry. Once COVID hit, all of a sudden, you couldn’t be shaking hands or hugging people. It went against taking care of people and everything I had known about hospitality. I just had to take a little bit of time to process everything.
I took a trip home to Korea and now I’m in such a better place. I’m finding that my purpose is a little bit different now. I feel I’m in an in-between, where I do understand the restaurant operators and I get what people are looking for and I’m hoping to bridge that with storytelling and community building.
How do you think restaurants are doing, handling outdoor dining during this time?
Everyone’s approaching it differently. Some restaurants are putting partitions between tables such as Atoboy, Nowon, and Fish Cheeks. This past week, at Haenyeo, I noticed the servers were changing into new gloves every 10 minutes. For me to physically see that, I felt safer. Any little thing we see would put us more at ease. Some restaurants are doing a great job, some could do better. That’s why I’m taking the time to personally visit them. If I'm going to vouch for them, I have to properly vet. When I feature these restaurants on With Warm Welcome, I believe in them and their work.
And when owners come to me and ask for feedback, I think that it’s amazing. It’s great that even though they’re focused on managing the restaurant, that they’re still taking the time to ask for my opinion. The ones that are going to make it out of this are the ones that are the most open minded. These are the people who are willing to change and try new things. For example, we have to be open to embracing technology. It’s something that we’ve been putting off as an industry. A QR code is a very basic example, but there there’s so many other things that we can do digitally. For instance, I think minimizing contact between guests and the staff is key during this time. In order to do so, I would take the QR code idea a step further. Instead of leading to a menu page PDF, it could lead directly to the ordering system in the kitchen. Guests could place their own food and beverage orders directly. Ideally, every code would be unique and programmed to each table for a much seamless service. Payment could be taken care of through this platform as well.
At the end of the day, I believe my role in all of this is to be able to openly talk about outdoor dining and how we all feel about it. The other is to champion and continuously promote the restaurants and the people behind it that I have come to adore, love, and admire.
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It was without a doubt a warm welcome from Arnold. His actions towards the community is fueled by his passion and love for those within it. They shaped him to who he is, and this is just his way of giving back and even paving the way for others.
Oh and we were STUFFED! After our goodbyes to Maiko and the Bessou team, we were on our way to the train station to head home and do some more work. Very grateful that Arnold took the time to meet with me, especially during these crazy times. I hope that he can continue to inspire many others with his projects and stories. He definitely has for me.
Until the next meal.