KITH AND KIN

PHOTO COURTESY OF REMI MCMANUS, KIN.

Boise eatery KIN strives for a communal experience

By Harrison Berry

I was at Boise restaurant KIN on a double date, and had just sat down when staff pulled up a two-top to my right on a hunch that a recently arrived couple would “get along” with us. We did. To my left was a couple who’d never been to KIN, lured by news of Co-Owner and Chef Kris Komori’s January 2023 nomination for a regional James Beard Award—Best Chef: Northwest (his fifth, making him arguably the most high-profile chef in Idaho). Introductions and handshakes led to conversation and laughter with people we’d never met.

“Maybe you don’t think you have anything in common with them,” KIN Co-Owner and Chef Kris Komori said about strangers you meet at the restaurant’s communal dinners. “You’re having a shared experience, and people get to know each other a little bit. That part’s unique. We’re the weird creature in the restaurant ecosystem.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF REMI MCMANUS, KIN.

Each of the five courses we ate that night—think sturgeon with seaweed and mushrooms or a shockingly hearty grain salad—was elevated, original, and paired with wine and cider. It’s tempting to try to pick a favorite or dissect the menu, but don’t miss the orchard for the apples. KIN bills itself as a place for new friends, storytelling, and family. Seated next to strangers, surrounded by art, and party to occasional explainers about the courses, diners get a singular Boise experience not so much driven by food as enabled and validated by it.

Fostering a social rather than insular dining experience is a holdover from KIN’s precursor restaurant State and Lemp. Other inheritances include staff collaboration on menus and beverage pairing, and “preservice meals,” in which one kitchen employee makes a meal for the entire staff while they strategize the night’s service. It makes for a work culture that looks less like a French Brigade and more like an actual family.

“I’ve always thought that [preservice meals] were really important. We just like each other,” Komori said. “We’re a very technically driven place, but we need the right people to fit.”

The staggered courses are a sensory delight. Each of the five courses such as sturgeon with seaweed and mushrooms (left) or hearty grain salad were paired with wine and cider.

PHOTO COURTESY OF REMI MCMANUS, KIN.

Call it KINship. Since the restaurant opened in 2020, it has worked to offer its employees materially more than most establishments of its industry and size. In 2021, it instituted a service charge on every check to subsidize health insurance and IRAs for the entire team. The company has also instituted an equitable salary system, and profit- and tip-sharing.

In 2023, Komori was one of four Treasure Valley semifinalists for regional James Beard Awards—more local chefs than any previous year. He attributes the increase in recognition to the growth of Boise and a large pool of talented service industry workers. As the number of prestigious Boise-area restaurants grows, Komori said he hopes KIN’s influence extends beyond fine dining and into the culture of the food service industry.

“The food and beverages are just what we do, you know?” he said. “And then the ‘why’ of what we do is to grow this culture and have a positive impact on the community.”