The AYALA SquareMeal Female Chef of the Year Series 2025: Kyu Jeong Jeon

London may be the UK’s undisputed heavyweight food champ, but when it comes to Britain’s pound-for-pound best eating cities, Bristol is hard to beat. This friendly South West hub has long punched above its weight, and today it’s home to a thrilling resurgence of outstanding restaurants.

Leading the charge is Dongnae - a delicious deep dive into the lesser-known corners of Korean cuisine, led by husband-and-wife duo Kyu Jeong Jeon and Duncan Robertson. Though they may be relatively new to the national spotlight, their culinary journey spans decades and continents, from rural France to the top of Seoul’s N Tower, and now, Bristol.

Champagne AYALA: Celebrating over 160 years of history, Champagne AYALA was one of the original twenty-six Grandes Marques Champagne Houses. The House received a Royal Warrant in 1908 and became a part of the Bollinger family in 2005. With its longstanding commitment to the restaurant industry, Champagne AYALA is known for its chardonnay driven, low-dosage wines, crafted with precision and delicacy on a boutique scale. These wines are the ultimate epicurean pairing, it’s no wonder they have been served in the UK for over 100 years in many of London’s most prestigious establishments.

The pair arrived in 2019 with Bokman, a tiny Stokes Croft spot that quickly made waves but proved too small for their big ideas. Bokman remains open, sticking to its much-loved formula: comforting home-style banchan, a borderline-iconic tongdak (wood oven roast chicken stuffed with sticky rice), and soft-serve ice cream. It’s neat, curated, perfectly formed - but it was never quite big enough for Kyu’s vision.

In contrast, Dongnae feels like the restaurant Kyu always dreamed of - bold, adventurous, and gently educational, grabbing diners by the hand and guiding them into Korean food’s undiscovered country.

‘We weren’t planning a second restaurant,’ she says, sliding a glass of ice water across the table. ‘But we had so many ideas. Dongnae grew out of years of digging deeper into Korean food. We wanted people to experience the balance of a full Korean meal - strong flavours matched by clean, refreshing ones, grilled meat offset by fresh vegetables, and always finished with rice cooked in a clay pot.’

Now they feel that diners are ready to explore deeper, and Dongnae is the next step.

The leap wasn’t just about creative freedom, it was also about literal square footage. At Bokman, Kyu and Duncan cooked elbow-to-elbow, squeezing past each other, sweating in the heat of the blazing wood oven. At Dongnae, a team of five works in harmony behind the wooden slats of the open kitchen, chatting as they wash salad leaves and slide octopus chunks onto kkochi skewers. Sunlight pours through huge front windows, cutting clean lines across the terrazzo floor and pale plywood tables. There’s room to breathe here - literally and creatively.

That space has given Kyu and Duncan room to grow, and the results have been a joy to watch. Dongnae has shattered the glass ceiling for Korean restaurants in the UK, proving itself as one of the country’s most exciting restaurants, period.

'Dongnae has shattered the glass ceiling for Korean restaurants in the UK, proving itself as one of the country’s most exciting restaurants, period.'

It’s rare for a restaurant outside the capital to draw such attention, but few restaurants have shone as bright as Dongnae in the last year. ‘A handpicked flurry of Korean loveliness,’ said Grace Dent in The Guardian. ‘So good I considered giving up cleaning my teeth,’ wrote Tim Hayward in the Financial Times. Even William Sitwell - a self-professed ‘kimchi refusenik’ - was full of praise for their revelatory cooking.

I read these to her and Kyu looks almost embarrassed. ‘I feel really grateful,’ she says with a sheepish smile. ‘People come in and really like it, and the reception has been great. But for me, introducing Korean food here is still new. A lot of Korean restaurants serve familiar dishes like bibimbap and bulgogi; I wanted to show people a broader range of Korean cooking.’

Born in Seoul, some 9,000 kilometres away, Kyu grew up in a house where food was ritual. Her mother, a skilled cook, prepared breakfast every morning without fail. ‘I didn’t realise how much effort it was,’ she says. ‘I would just wake up and there was food on the table - sometimes I didn’t even have time to eat it.’

Her father was just as food-obsessed, fulfilling the paternal duty of eating things nobody else wanted. ‘He loves the weird parts,’ she laughs. ‘Like fish eyes!’

As a child, Kyu and her father would escape to the forested mountains of Gangwon-do, winding through the trees to their favourite riverside barbecue spot. They’d sit outdoors, wrapping grilled meat in crisp lettuce leaves, the scent of smoke mingling with the cool mountain air. Then, full and happy, they’d tumble down to the water’s edge and splash in the shallows.

Idyllic memories of food stayed with her, long after she grew up and headed to university, studying Visual Art at Kyonggi University. After graduating, Kyu tried web design but quickly knew it wasn’t for her. She hated the hours in front of a screen, craving work with her hands. Then she read an interview with a food stylist, and something clicked: if she learned to cook, maybe she could work with food in a deeper way.

In post-war Korea, studying abroad was the norm, and France the accepted home of gastronomy. Lured by the romance of Paris, Kyu enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu, studied cuisine and bakery, and took on long shifts as a chef’s assistant. Her French improved in the clatter and steam of kitchens. She learned how to bone a rabbit and temper chocolate, but also how to survive fourteen-hour days - a skill that served her well when she landed a place at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in St-Germain.

‘It was intense, but I loved it,’ she says. ‘You work long hours every day, but you’re young and you don’t care - you just get on with it. I spent so much time with the same people that they became my friends, so I loved going to work.’

Perhaps most fatefully, L'Atelier was also where Kyu met Duncan, who had come to Paris chasing the same dream. The pair later moved to Brive-la-Gaillarde in southwest France, where they won a star at Restaurant L’Envie. Then came a decade in Seoul, cooking in the revolving restaurant at the top of Seoul Tower. The work was corporate and not as artistically fulfilling, but crucially, it allowed them to start a family.

'...there are many other ways to be a chef. Cooking for schools, for communities - those are great jobs too.'

Still, Kyu admits that hospitality makes balancing work and family hard. ‘It’s not possible without support - from family, friends, babysitters. You’re always juggling. Sometimes you have to choose: today, which one needs my attention? Sometimes it’s the kids, sometimes it’s the work.’

She’s candid about what the industry demands of women who want both a career and a family. ‘If you want to work at the top level in fine dining, you have to give all your effort. But there are many other ways to be a chef. Cooking for schools, for communities - those are great jobs too. It depends what you want.’

She points to Buddhist monk chef Jeong Kwan as an inspiration, and an example of how the act of cooking can be fulfilling in itself, regardless of where you do it or who you do it for. ‘Her approach to food is incredibly inspiring, ‘she says. ‘She treats cooking not just as something to eat, but as a practice of mindfulness and connection. There’s a purity and honesty in the way she cooks that really resonates with me. She shows that food doesn’t have to be elaborate to be profound, and that’s something I carry with me in my own cooking.’

Dongnae is a triumph, but for Kyu, it’s just the next step in a journey that began in the forests of Gangwon-do and passed through Paris, rural France, and Seoul. Now in Bristol, she’s redefining Korean cuisine in Britain: bold, thoughtful, and proudly original. Dongnae’s story is only just beginning, in that sense.

‘I have new ideas for dishes every day. That never stops,’ she says. For now, her focus is on deepening Dongnae’s menu and growing with her team. ‘The future feels like it should grow naturally, from the people and the food we love. Whether that leads to new projects or more restaurants, we want it to come from that same place of honesty and connection.’

If Bokman was the spark, Dongnae is the fire. And judging by the rave reviews, it’s only just begun to spread.

Kyu’s perfect match for AYALA's Le Blanc de Blancs A/18

The dish: Korean fried chicken wings with chilli seed glaze

The Champagne: AYALA Le Blanc de Blancs A/18

Why it works: ‘Korean fried chicken and Champagne always go well together! But these two work especially well because the coating on our fried chicken has quite a yeasty, bready flavour, and the Champagne has those similar notes, as well as lots of acidity to cut through the richness. The glaze is sweet and a bit spicy, and the fizz goes nicely with the gentle spice.’

Read about all the other chefs shortlisted for the 2025 Female Chef of the Year Award: Abby Lee, Ruth Hansom, Amber Francis, and Sarah Hayward, plus 2024's SquareMeal AYALA Female Chef of the Year, Adejoké Bakare.