SEOUL – Netflix’s mega-hit Culinary Class Wars (2024 to present) is once again catapulting its chef contestants into stardom.
Leading the Season 2 pack is Son Jong-won, a member of the White Spoon team comprising established chefs. Soft-spoken yet confident, the chef behind Seoul’s one-Michelin-starred restaurants, Eatanic Garden and L’Amant Secret, has captivated viewers.
Son’s Instagram following has jumped by more than 300,000 since the show’s release on Dec 16, 2025, reaching 495,000 as at Jan 11. It is said the celebrated chef is South Korea’s most followed chef on Instagram. Reservations at his restaurants have become nearly impossible to secure.
The 42-year-old has even earned the nickname “good-vibe man”. South Korean women use the newly emerging term to describe men whose attractiveness is defined by warmth and an overall pleasant and approachable presence.
Everything from his taste in fashion – he wears American designer brand Rick Owens, known for its dark, glamorous grunge aesthetic – to his 1.84m height has helped him stand out.
He is also the ambassador for luxury Swiss watchmaker Blancpain and Scottish whisky brand Johnnie Walker Blue Label.
His resume stands out too. Son earned a civil engineering scholarship at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana, United States. He has worked in some of the world’s best kitchens, honing his craft at Noma in Copenhagen and three-Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurants Quince, Benu and Coi. He also speaks English fluently.
Riding high on his growing popularity, his connections have extended beyond the culinary world, with members of South Korea’s conglomerate families publicly noting their ties to him.
Hyundai Card chief executive and vice-chair Chung Tae-young posted a photo of himself and the chef on Instagram on Jan 7, recalling his visit to Son’s Eatanic Garden.
“I personally don’t enjoy omakase and course-style restaurants. But Son’s Eatanic Garden, which I visited last winter, was impressive enough to make me want to return. The dishes, paired with alcohol, have a depth of flavour that grabbed my attention,” the Instagram post read.
Ms Jules Lee, a scion of DL Group, posted a photo of herself and Son on Instagram that same day, with a caption: “Eatanic Garden is the best I have ever had.”
Also enjoying a surge of popularity is Im Seong-geun, a contestant of the show and the winner of Korean Food Battle 3 in 2015.
Apart from his performance on the show, Im, 58, has also built a fan base by connecting with audiences through his YouTube channel, Im Seong-geun Im-jjang TV. Having more than 890,000 subscribers, Im has attracted a growing following through his cooking content.
Im’s rise has been backed by a compelling backstory, rooted in decades of experience in Korean cuisine and personal struggles before Culinary Class Wars 2.
His rise is often described as a classic underdog story. After running away from home at a young age, he began his career washing dishes. He defied rigid kitchen hierarchies through relentless practice, working on his knife skills late into the night, eventually becoming a head chef at just 19 – one of the youngest in South Korea’s culinary history.
Im’s culinary career has also taken him into cultural diplomacy. He served as executive banquet chef for the World Association of Chefs’ Societies in Chile in 2010 and later led state banquet preparations at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing in 2016.
Black Spoon contestant Lee Ha-sung, also known as Culinary Monster, is one of the breakout figures of Culinary Class Wars 2.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
One of the breakout figures of Culinary Class Wars 2 is a Black Spoon contestant known as Culinary Monster.
Behind the intimidating nickname is Lee Ha-sung, whose culinary style is bold, ambitious and fierce. A former sous chef at The French Laundry in California, Lee, 37, later worked at Atomix in New York, which has two Michelin stars. He was also the first Asian chef to work at Copenhagen’s three-Michelin-starred Geranium.
Lee’s popularity is closely tied to the show’s core concept, which strips away titles, fame and background to reward performance over resumes. This approach has led many viewers to see him as the ideal competitor in a merit-driven culinary arena.
Despite being on the challenger Black Spoon team, Lee’s work shone with precision, proving that skill speaks louder than words with dishes such as his spring herb porridge with truffle and stalked sea squirt sashimi, to name a few.
Lee is set to open his new restaurant, Oyatte, in New York later this year. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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