Stephanie Hart of Brown Sugar Bakery. Illustration: Rachelle Baker The food industry is a difficult one to break into. The pressure of owning a small restaurant includes long hours, pivoting, and constant uncertainty. For women, starting a restaurant also comes with a higher level of skepticism owing to a long-standing culture of misogyny that persists in the industry.
I moved to New York five years ago to help open Agern, a [Claus] Meyer Danish restaurant. I was thinking about the concept of Doshi for years. It’s from the Korean word doshirak, or “packed meals.” I remember when I was in school, all the kids put their doshiraks around the heaters in the room to keep them from getting cold in the winter. It’s something that you’re doing for yourself, a gift for yourself, and that was the ethos I wanted to extend into my own business.
in New York City I have a journal from 2001 that says “Vietnamese bakery” in it. I was working in fashion. After I had my first baby, the priorities didn’t really line up with my ethos in life anymore. I decided that New York City hadn’t had a proper introduction to Vietnamese desserts. I guess the larger picture is Asian American representation. I’ve always been proud to be Asian American.
“I hate that my business is driven through Instagram.” —Lexie Park, owner of Nünchi in Los Angeles Nünchi derives from a Korean word that doesn’t have a direct translation, but means having awareness and the ability to read a room. I wanted to create a setting where we could talk about and experience food in a different way. It was just me playing around with food and wanting to switch my career from being in fashion my whole life.
Jess: I’d been working at L’Oréal for some years, but I transitioned because I always loved restaurants. It wasn’t our intention to open a corner spot in Soho, but as soon as we saw the space it really determined what we were going to create, and the space became a part of the narrative. We all connected through a mutual love and appreciation of good food and great wine and love of restaurants.