Saehee Cho is a food professional with over 17 years of experience in catering, working as a private chef, menu consulting, food styling/photography and food activism/education. She created SOON to house a diverse portfolio of projects all centered around food. She specializes in Third-Culture Californian fare with a broad base in Korean, Japanese, and Mexican flavors. Her food is a direct representation of the immigrant cultures that developed her culinary point of view. Her menus source local, organic, and sustainable produce directly from farms within Southern California.
Her work has been featured on NPR Good Food, Taste The Nation with Padma Lakshmi, LA Times, Sunset Magazine, and Kinfolk.
SOON is made possible by through the support of a constellation of dedicated friends and collaborators but the undeniable core of SOON is made up of BESSIE HWANG and SAYA RUSSELL.
While SOON has had many iterations since 2015, Saya & Bessie are anchors through every turn. Many menus were developed from team meetings turned into late night dinner parties.
Over the years SOON has expanded outside of a personal project and has become a synergy born out of friendship channeled onto the plate.
OUR TEAM
PRESS
“Ideally, Cho knows all the hands that have touched her food, specifically the people who grew and tended to it. “A carrot is a carrot, but a carrot that I know Andrew grew or that I know that this season it was hard to grow because there was a lack of water, and that’s why it’s shaped like this — that’s what gives the thing something extra from me,” she says. “Because that creates the narrative that creates value.”
WRITER / ELISA WOUK ALMINO
PHOTOGRAPHER / JENNELLE FONG
“A couple of weeks ago, I caught up with my friend Saehee Cho on a Sunday afternoon while she tended to her garden. Saehee is a Los Angeles-based writer and a cook who I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with in both of her creative outlets; Saehee has written several essays for Faculty Department and has also worked as a food and prop stylist on multiple of my commercial assignments…”
APRIL 2020
WRITER / JUSTINE CHUNG
PHOTOGRAPHER / JUSTIN CHUNG
“Cho tends to host smaller groups of four to six guests at her home, cooking Korean-inspired dishes that she garnishes with edible flowers and herbs — she recommends a sprinkle of parsley, rosemary or thyme, if you have them — from her backyard, where her meals are always served at a simple picnic table. Her approach to food is holistic, and she takes into account what’s in season and most accessible.…”
JULY 2021
WRITER / CAMILLE OKHIO
PHOTOGRAPHER / JOYCE KIM
“I think this is true of a lot of cultures: The table is where we commune. Where language lacks, where culture lacks, where common experience lacks — food bridges that gap,” says Saehee Cho. When the pandemic shut down businesses last March, she launched Soon Mini, a community-driven food subscription service. She first delivered fresh produce to friends before casting a wider net, including products from farmers, out-of-work bakers, and small business owners. On top of it all, the money she collects goes toward social justice organizations, including Asian American Advancing Justice and Black Visions Collective. Cho talks about the importance of “living horizontally” — involving herself in food, the arts, and activism…”
APRIL 2021
HOST / KAREN TONGSON & EVAN KLEIMAN
“For Saehee Cho, a cook, writer and food stylist, food offers a unique way to bring people together—whether you’re reconciling generational divides, helping your community, or just making time to connect with friends over dinner. “There’s something so communicative about cooking for someone and having them eat your food,” she says.…”
WRITER / GEORGE UPTON
PHOTOGRAPHER / JUSTIN CHUNG