Which Los Angeles chef is credited with popularizing Korean tacos through Kogi BBQ? Roy Choi.
Roy Choi is the Los Angeles chef credited with popularizing Korean tacos through Kogi Korean BBQ. The food truck combined Korean-style fillings, such as bulgogi and spicy pork, with small Mexican corn tortillas and toppings including kimchi and Korean-inspired sauces. The result became a defining Korean-Mexican fusion dish.
Kogi was founded in 2008 by Choi, Mark Manguera, and Caroline Shin-Manguera. Its breakthrough came partly from using Twitter to announce the truck’s changing locations, turning the hunt for tacos into a social-media event. Kogi’s success helped establish the modern gourmet food-truck movement and inspired similar trucks in cities including Portland, Austin, and Seattle.
Choi is sometimes described as the inventor of Korean tacos, but that wording is too absolute: restaurants had served Korean-flavored tacos before Kogi. His more defensible distinction is that he made the style nationally visible and commercially influential. Food & Wine named him one of its Best New Chefs in 2010, the first food-truck chef to receive that recognition.