California Dreaming

by: CARY WONG

California Dreaming

How Chef Alex Hong’s Sorrel Restaurant rose to prominence

San Francisco has an innovative vibe. Dreamers, entrepreneurs, and ambitious people of all types are drawn to it. Chef Alex Hong is definitely one of those intrepid ones. He opened Sorrel, his first restaurant, in 2018, and was awarded a Michelin Star in 2019. Though the real story starts with his life in Boulder, Colorado.

At 15 years old, he was looking for a summer job in town. Regardless of the industry, no one called back. The only exception was a high-end restaurant at the top of Flagstaff Mountain called the Flagstaff House. They needed help so they hired him.

He spent all his high school years working at the Flagstaff House restaurant and got the opportunity to move around in the kitchen, working the fish station and the meat station. It was there where he fell in love with cooking and creating food.

After finishing high school, he got into the Culinary Institute of America in New York and then started working at the three-Michelinstarred Jean Georges. He experienced a big culture shock as he moved to a buzzing metropolitan area after living in a smaller town his whole life. He then experienced the lows of moving back home and the highs of working at the iconic Quince Restaurant in San Francisco.

The true turning point, however, came in 2016. He started a tiny little supper club with a friend who was not involved with the industry. And they lucked into a great deal with a hotel located in Union Square. “(The management was) basically like, hey, this restaurant is hunting. If you want to do a little concept here just to try to get some traction, you guys can have the place for free,” he recalls.

So, they moved in without any fanfare. They started handing out menus outside, like some tourist traps might do, to get business. Within a month of constant efforts, they got some momentum. A small write-up here, positive word-of-mouth there—eventually the supper club blew up.

The numerous pop-up-to-riches stories in San Francisco like Saison, Lazy Bear, Liholiho Yacht Club among others were certainly inspirations to Chef Hong. Though the path from the bottom where two people had to hustle to fill the popup, to being the owner of a one-star restaurant was arduous nonetheless. It took time, patience, motivation, and determination.

He had to plan the restaurant, learn accounting, and do various things that were not related to kitchen work. He was even involved in renovating the front of the house. They put together a Pinterest mood board and got to work. “Tiling, painting, chopping wood... we were doing all this stuff ourselves just to try to cut costs,” he says.

Back in the kitchen, he took inspiration from the places that he worked at—from Jean George’s way of combining Asian influences and French techniques to putting handmade pastas together with Californian bounty at Quince—no stones were left unturned.

The menu at Sorrel completely changes every six weeks. The process begins three weeks prior when the team starts with a protein.

Read more at https://issuu.com/rareluxuryliving/docs/troora_san_francisco_2021_pages/124