Sushi Kotei

Born and raised in Daegu, Chef Gong Min-su first learned to cook at a culinary school around age twenty, then went on to study architecture at university. After his first year and his military service, his heart returned to the kitchen. He worked in food service in Daegu before moving to Seoul to pursue cooking in earnest.

He worked across Western, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese cuisine, but what stayed with him most was Japanese cooking, and sushi. Of his nine years in Japanese cuisine, seven have been focused on sushi. “Kotei (小亭)” means “a small pavilion” in Japanese — a place, like a small pavilion, where anyone can rest at ease.

The first words Chef Gong reaches for are “the essence of the ingredient” and “balance.” He adjusts the rice's seasoning and vinegar by season, and treats tuna as “the face of a sushi restaurant” — the piece he gives the most care to. He grates fresh wasabi by hand, tuned specifically for how it meets the tuna.

He still considers himself a cook in the process of learning. The same fish can yield entirely different results depending on prep, curing, and technique, so he keeps experimenting rather than settling on one answer. His goal isn't a restaurant that only he can run well, but a sushi house where the whole team grows together.