Chef Ann Kim
Ann Kim is the Chef/Owner of Pizzeria Lola, Hello Pizza, Young Joni and Kim’s, all located in Minneapolis. As a Korean immigrant raised in Apple Valley, Minnesota, Ann attributes her culinary palate and love of cooking to her mother and grandmother, from whom she learned to make traditional Korean staples such as doenjang, gochujang and kimchi.
In 2010 Ann opened Pizzeria Lola, a wood-fire pizzeria that has been lauded both locally and nationally. Her second restaurant, Hello Pizza, was inspired by her college days in New York City, where sustenance came in the form of a daily slice.
Young Joni, which debuted in 2016, is known for its eclectic, genre-bending menu of signature pizzas and other wood-fired dishes. In 2017, the Minneapolis Star Tribune named Young Joni as Restaurant of the Year, and it has since topped numerous “best of” lists, including GQ’s Best New Restaurants in America and Esquire’s Best Bars in America.In 2019, Ann became the first woman and person of color from Minneapolis to receive the prestigious James Beard Award for “Best Chef Midwest,” which celebrated her vision and cookery at Young Joni.
In October 2023, Chef Ann opened Kim’s, a Korean American restaurant serving a menu rooted in Ann’s heritage and culinary journey. Kim’s blends bold Korean and Midwestern flavors together to create delicious dishes that serve as an homage to Ann’s Apple Valley, Minnesota childhood.
In September 2022, Chef Ann was featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table: Pizza (season 7, episode 3). The 45-minute episode explores Ann’s story, from immigrating to the United States in the late 1970s to leaving her acting career and opening restaurants to winning the James Beard Award in 2019. The episode is now streaming on Netflix.
In addition to her role as Chef/Owner of four distinctive Minneapolis-based restaurants, Ann drives the culinary vision for Kyndred Hearth, the flagship restaurant at Omni Viking Lakes Hotel, a partnership between Omni Hotels and the Minnesota Vikings.
Chef Kim’s work has been widely featured in news outlets such as The New York Times, Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Forbes, Food & Wine, Wall Street Journal, Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” CBS Saturday’s “The Dish” and “The Splendid Table.”
Jennifer Lin LeMesurier
Jennifer Lin LeMesurier’s current research focuses on how rhetorics surrounding food, eating, and cuisine influence Asian and Asian American identity and agency. Her monograph, Inscrutable Eating: Asian Appetites and the Rhetorics of Racial Consumption, offers a heuristic for understanding how rhetorical arguments around race are deeply interconnected with how we talk about food and consumption.
Previous work, including articles in College Composition and Communication, Peitho, POROI, Rhetoric Review, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly, analyzes the interchange of discourse and embodiment in dance, choreography, and pedagogy
Currently, Jennifer is the book review editor for Present Tense and on the editorial boards of Capacious, Quarterly Journal of Speech, and Xchanges. Media appearances include Inverse, Meant to Be Eaten, The Academic Minute, and This American Life.
Follow her on Twitter @rhetorologist
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