Award-winning chef Bill Kim, one of the architects that helped establish Chicago as a world-class food destination, immigrated to the United States from Seoul, South Korea, in 1977, at the age of 7.
“When my family moved to the states, I was excited, but also scared,” Kim says about that time. “I missed Korea, especially during Chuseok, our harvest festival. Back home, it was a time for family, food and remembering our ancestors. In our new home, everything felt different. No one knew about Chuseok.”
Almost half a century later, a group of Korean chefs are hoping to change that.
The three-day Korean holiday is celebrated on the eighth month of the lunar calendar during the full moon; this year Chuseok begins on Monday. The special occasion is marked by charye, or memorial services, where homage is paid to ancestors. Food and wine is left as offerings during these ceremonies and people spend the days preparing food with their families. Festivities go through the night with people staying up late to wish upon the moon when it’s at its brightest. Chuseok is often oversimplified as “Korean Thanksgiving.”
“The entire country will stop what it’s doing to get ready for Chuseok,” says Andy Lim, executive chef at modern Korean restaurant Perilla in West Town. “Growing up, we never celebrated it here in America, but every year that it happened, as long as I can remember, my mom would talk about it. She would talk about the games they played, the food they prepared, and staying up all night with her siblings and cousins.”
The separation of families caused by immigration and relatively small Korean communities in cities like Chicago translated into Chuseok being a memory for many Korean Americans, rather than a continued tradition.
“But I didn’t want to forget,” says Kim. “So we cooked what we could. I told my friends about the meaning of the holiday, about honoring those who came before us and being thankful for what we have. We shared food, memories and laughter. It wasn’t exactly like home, but it felt warm and right. I realized Chuseok doesn’t live in one place. It lives in our hearts. And by sharing it, I brought a piece of Korea to my new home.”
This year, that same commitment to sharing Chuseok traditions is taking shape on a larger scale.
Lim, alongside Chris Jung, executive chef of Maxwells Trading in West Loop and a 2025 James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef Great Lakes, have teamed up with other Korean chefs in the city to host the inaugural Chuseok celebration at Jung’s restaurant on Sunday. The 200-person event is sold out and set to feature bites from the duo as well as from Jennifer Kim of Proxi, the West Loop restaurant specializing in coastal Asian cuisine; Min Lee and Hans Hwang from Mister Tiger, a Korean comfort food restaurant in West Town; and cocktails from Christina Chae of cocktail bars Golden Years and Moonflower in West Town and Portage Park, respectively.
Some of the most traditional foods enjoyed during the holiday include songpyeon, pillowy half-moon shaped rice cakes filled with ingredients such as sweetened red bean paste, toasted sesame seeds and mung beans; japchae, chewy glass noodles stir-fried with vegetables in a savory sauce; as well as jeon (also referred to as jon or chun), savory pancakes of batter-fried vegetables, meats and seafood.
All of which will be served at Maxwells Trading in celebration of the Korean holiday — the first of its kind among Chicago’s top chefs.
“We don’t have that same memory Chef Kim has of celebrating Chuseok back in Korea,” says Jung. “For us, it’s almost like we’re rediscovering our heritage.”
Alongside the traditional foods, Chae will serve a boozy version of hwachae, a watermelon milk fruit punch made with tequila; and ssanghwa, a traditional Korean herbal tea, mixed with scotch.
Chae met Jung and Lim at last year’s Jean Banchet Awards. She says they treated her like and equal and from there, the group bonded over the now-defunct Chicago Korean Festival.
“It was all Korean vendors, Korean food, Korean beverages, snacks and desserts,” says Chae about the festival held in Albany Park that ended a few years ago. “And there were a lot of Korean brick and mortar [stores] that surrounded the festival. It was funny that we all remember this one thing that isn’t a thing anymore. So we said, ‘Why don’t we try to get something like that going again?’ This is our intro to working together and maybe doing something bigger in the future.”
Lim credits the global interest in Korean culture — driven largely by K-pop — as creating the right conditions to bring a Chuseok event to life, now.
“It’s a shock to my parents to see how big the influence of Korea has become globally,” Lim says. “It’s mind boggling because I remember growing up and getting tormented about my food and my culture and now it’s being embraced into the mainstream. It’s a little bittersweet.”
Changing attitudes toward Korean culture also inspired a more personal motivation behind the event.
“Thinking about our parents while discussing the possibility of this event was a big part of it,” Lim says. “We wanted to go to our parents and say ‘Hey, come see what we’ve done. Come see that we created this event so you can celebrate again, so that you can remember.’”
The group hopes this team effort will serve as a catalyst for building a stronger community rooted in Korean culture — the kind Kim surely longed for when he arrived in the U.S., almost 48 years ago.
In the intro to Kim’s 2018 cookbook “Korean BBQ,” one of the first American cookbooks to focus on Korean cuisine, he wrote: “In America, I was an alien: no one looked like me. I was miserable, and I just wanted to go back home … a year later, when more Korean immigrants came to our school, I was the one helping them get acclimated and guiding them through life in America.”
Kim has built a career defined by this kind of leadership.
“Bill is such an important figure for my generation and the future generation of Korean American folks, because we had no representation,” Lim says. “We had no one that looked like us and could guide us and show us that our food and our culture mattered. Kim was a pioneer and he still is so monumental in making sure that we have a platform to share our story. It’s such an honor to even share this culture with someone like him. We really wanted him to be a part of this but he’s going to be out of town.”
While Kim isn’t participating in this inaugural event, the gathering of award-winning Korean chefs celebrating the holiday highlights his undeniable impact on the community. Chuseok becoming more mainstream is proof that Kim has helped usher in a new era, one where a new wave of Korean chefs and mixologists are stepping into their power and asking their peers and allies to join them.
Correction: This story has been updated to say the Chuseok event at Maxwells Trading is on Sunday.
Traditional Korean foods served during Chuseok
Here are some traditional dishes served during the harvest holiday.
Bo ssam: This traditional dish is also not holiday specific but it’s often served during Chuseok and is personal to every family. It is a dish that his chef Chris Jung and his family eats and serves on the holiday and it will be served at the chefs’ Chuseok event.
Fruits: Asian pears and apples are featured prominently during the harvest holiday and are good gifts for hosts.
Galbi-jjim: Slow-cooked beef short ribs with veggies served with a sweet and savory sauce with a nutty profile.
Kimchi: Widely considered the national dish of Korea, kimchi — napa cabbage that is salted, seasoned with chile pepper and fermented — is served at virtually every meal.
Japchae: Chewy glass noodles are stir-fried with vegetables and meat in a savory sauce.
Jeon: Also referred to as jon or chun, these savory pancakes consisting of batter-fried vegetables, meats and seafood are another holiday staple.
Songpyeon: These pillowy half-moon shaped rice cakes filled with ingredients such as sweetened red bean paste, toasted sesame seeds and mung beans are a signature item on families’ tables for the holiday.