Chef Son Jong-won revealed his daily life.
'Friend of Blancpain' and Michelin-starred restaurant Itanic Garden and La Mange Secrète's head chef Son Jong-won appeared with Blancpain on Esquire Korea's first digital cover of 2026 and the February print issue.
Son Jong-won, who participated in Netflix's Culinary Class Wars 2 as a White Spoon and attracted attention with his characteristically calm demeanor and elegant cooking skills, wore Blancpain's signature dress watch line the new Villeret collection, brought the Blancpain Bathyscaphe collectible piece he has owned for a long time, and joined the day's shoot. This pictorial, which captures a soft yet intense mood and the aesthetics of time that flows precisely, allows viewers to appreciate Blancpain's deep heritage and diverse timepieces.
In this interview, Chef Son Jong-won said of Culinary Class Wars 2, "(As the competition rounds progressed) I wanted to show the process of gradually moving from Western cuisine to Korean cuisine," and said, "For the final dish I wanted to cook entirely based on Korean food to introduce Korean cuisine to overseas viewers, but it's a pity I was eliminated before that."
He went on to talk about a life in which almost everything is focused on cooking. "La Mange Secrète and Itanic Garden have different days off, and one day a week overlaps. Excluding broadcasting activities, the number of days I can fully rest in a month is about one or two," he said, adding, "For the past three years I hardly took vacations voluntarily. I thought it was a time when I had to be at the kitchen."
He added, "I exercise early in the morning, not to build muscle but to manage joint range of motion and develop strength and endurance," noting, "These are things needed to cook longer." From the perspective of a chef who cooked abroad and returned to Korea, he also explained the strengths of Korean cuisine. He said, "When you think about what makes our food different, one clear thing is the culture of eating namul and vegetables," and added, "We take it for granted, but from an overseas perspective people inevitably react with surprise, like, 'Do they really cook these greens in so many different ways?'"
He continued that while cooking is important in a restaurant, other services are also important, saying, "At our restaurant, as soon as a guest begins their meal we determine whether they are left- or right-handed," and adding, "There is an arrangement of dishes that corresponds to that, and it's necessary to maintain these principles that might seem unnecessary to worry about."
[Photo] Esquire
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