The first call came late, around midnight, a time when people with 9-to-5 jobs have already started sawing away on log three or four. Chef Edward Lee picked up the phone. It was Jason Berry, co-founder of the Washington-based Knead Hospitality + Design, who wanted to pitch an idea.
"We ended up chatting for an hour or two," Lee says during a phone interview. "For me, part of [this profession] is business, but the other part is, you just have to get along with people.”
After more calls and site visits, Lee and Knead Hospitality became two of the most unlikely partners to open a restaurant together: a hands-on chef known for his small, highly personalized Southern-leaning kitchens, and a freshly minted hospitality group whose founders cut their teeth with such behemoths as Hillstone Restaurant Group, BR Guest Hospitality, California Pizza Kitchen and Rosa Mexicano.
Yet here they are, Lee and Knead, announcing a collaboration to launch Succotash, a 200-seat establishment at National Harbor dedicated to the chef's unique Asian-accented dishes from the South.
"Here in Louisville, I do everything myself. I don’t have partners. I have to say, I love the control aspect of it," Lee says. "But it’s a grind. There are some days that I spend more time with my accountant than my chef, and I hate it.”
So when Berry and Knead co-founder Michael Reginbogin told Lee that he could focus on cooking, and they would take care of the rest, the chef was sold. Lee was also sold on National Harbor, a location not exactly known for quirky, chef-driven restaurants. Or, perhaps more precisely, Lee was sold on Maryland, which he equates to Louisville, a Southern city that's not deeply rooted in Southern culture, the chef suggests.
"They're not constrained by the traditions" of the South, Lee says. "Of course, that's why I like Louisville because people are always open to your new interpretations of things."
Like miso-smothered chicken, tamarind-strawberry-glazed ham, collards and kimchi or green tomato kimchi, dishes that Lee featured in his debut cookbook, the excellent "Smoke & Pickles" (2013, Artisan). Lee thinks Maryland — a state with "one foot in the South and one foot not,” he says — has a similar cultural dynamic: an appreciation for the past without being bound by it.
This open-minded, open-ended approach to life is clearly important to Lee, a Korean-American who grew up in Canarsie, Brooklyn, a neighborhood with no fixed cultural identity. It was a melting pot.
"I didn't even grow up Korean, really. I probably knew as much about Jamaican food as I did about Korean food," Lee told PBS viewers in an episode of "The Mind of a Chef." "Most Koreans when you move to America, you move to Flushing. My parents were weird in that they said, 'No, we moved here for a reason. We want you to grow up American.' So instead, they moved into a neighborhood with 40 other immigrant groups."
In a way, Succotash, the restaurant, is an apt name to Lee. The corn-based dish is as open-ended as his approach to Southern cooking.
"Everywhere you go succotash is different," Lee says. "There are a million different interpretations of succotash, and they all fall into this general territory of Southern food.”
"I want my succotash to be different and personal," he adds, talking as much about his restaurant, it seems, as the dish. "I hope you like my succotash because it's not going to be the type of succotash you'll find in Georgia."
As both an enthusiastic bourbon drinker and a horse-racing fan (National Harbor's relative proximity to Pimlico in Baltimore proved an allure to the chef), Lee plans to offer at least 25 different bourbons, the spirit behind the mint julep, the cocktail tied to the Kentucky Derby since the 1930s. Warning: Don't get Lee started on bourbons unless you have an hour to chat.
Alcohol aside, Lee has been taste-testing dishes for Succotash, which he says will split the difference between the tasting-menu-only 610 Magnolia and the more casual MilkWood. He talked in general terms about dishes that may make the cut, Southern standards such as collard greens, corn bread, fried chicken, pimento cheese and chess pie. Lee plans to add his own global touches to some plates, while leaving others alone, depending on his view of the original. He fully expects, for example, to put his personal stamp on fried chicken. As for pimento cheese . . .
"I don’t do anything with pimento cheese. I think pimento cheese is perfect, " Lee says. "I’ve never had a bad pimento cheese," including the ones he's bought in sealed tubs at the grocery store.
Reginbogin says he and Berry have been sensitive to the fact that Succotash will be Lee's first restaurant outside Louisville. There will not only be pressure to succeed quickly at National Harbor — certainly much faster than at 610 Magnolia, which developed organically over the years — but also pressure not to alienate the base back in Kentucky, which might "react to a chef seeking deeper water," Reginbogin says.
As such, Knead is investing a lot in Succotash. The company is carving the restaurant out of three previous concepts that have abandoned National Harbor. Knead is handling the design of the space, mixing classic Southern architectural details with industrial and contemporary touches. There will be no reclaimed wood, Reginbogin promises. The company has even hired artist Claudio Picasso to paint murals inside Succotash.
But perhaps most important of all, Reginbogin and Berry have not just contracted Lee to consult on the project. The chef is a partner in the business. In fact, Lee has an official title: culinary director for Succotash, which sort of implies this National Harbor location won't be the only one. Right?
"The hope is always to do more," says Reginbogin, "but we got to stay humble and prove ourselves."
Lee certainly isn't getting ahead of himself. He plans to rent an apartment near National Harbor and personally train the staff in his philosophy, methods and restaurant culture, without leaving a hefty recipe book for the kitchen to follow slavishly. Lee wants to give his cooks flexibility, which is not the same as giving them free reign to reinvent dishes to their own conceptual ideas. He does have standards. High standards, it seems.
The Succotash culinary director will remain at National Harbor "for as long as it takes to get ready," Lee says. "And we’re not going to open doors until we’re ready. . .We don’t have a set opening date.”
No, but they do have a tentative one: sometime in May.