Quiet leadership of chef Hou Deok-juk from 'Culinary Class Wars'

Chef Hou Deok-juk / Captured from Netflix

While there are many culinary greats emerging from Netflix’s "Culinary Class Wars 2" Hou Deok-juk stands out not as a new star but rather as a stalwart master of Korean Chinese cuisine. Born in 1949, his culinary career spans 57 years, including a 42-year tenure at Palsun, the Chinese restaurant in the Shilla Hotel. He remains an active chef, still working the wok himself. Just two years after taking charge of Haobin at the Ambassador Seoul Pullman Hotel in 2021, he earned the restaurant a Michelin star. Even today, he reportedly checks every dish emerging from his kitchen to ensure it is served at the perfect temperature.

Chef Hou began his career in 1968 as a kitchen assistant in a hotel restaurant, enticed by the promise that he "could eat plenty of ham and sausage." Through grueling training that started with cleaning and laundry, and through tenacious research into culinary secrets, he became a master chef. He introduced the Chinese dish "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall," a Fujianese shark fin soup, to Korea in 1987. He transformed the landscape of Chinese cuisine here, which had been dominated by spicy Sichuan and Beijing styles, bringing in lighter, less greasy Cantonese dishes. In 1994, he received praise from then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin during his visit to Korea, who said it tasted "better than cuisine from the Chinese mainland."

Someone of Chef Hou’s stature appearing on a cooking variety show to compete with young chefs was already a departure from the normal hierarchy. The dignity and grace he displayed during the competition were an even greater revelation. For chefs, knives are personal and symbolic items. When a fellow contestant abruptly grabbed Hou's cleaver and banged it down to crush garlic, he simply laughed it off, saying, "You use the knife very well." Over the course of the series, viewers have watched him yield the team leader role to a junior teammate and season food with his bare hands like the youngest novice. He encouraged a former apprentice who hesitated while slicing mangoes, saying, "Do it like that, good! Good!" and greeted the judges first with a respectful "Thank you for your hard work!" Throughout these displays of humility and camaraderie, the accolades poured in.

Chefs have often been portrayed as people who easily fly into a rage. Choi Hyun-wook (played by Lee Sun-kyun) in the drama "Pasta" (2010) and Gordon Ramsay are archetypes of the ‘tyrant chef.’ Chef Hou demonstrated that kitchens can run smoothly without anger and that skill does not require arrogance. Leadership based on intimidation and humiliation is outdated. Everyone from class presidents to corporate team leaders and national figures should reflect on this lesson.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.