Background and career
David Chang (Korean: 장석호; Chang Seok-ho; born August 5, 1977) is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, author, podcaster, and television personality. He is the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. In 2009, his restaurant Momofuku Ko was awarded two Michelin stars, which the restaurant retained each year until its closure in 2023. In 2011, he co-founded the food magazine Lucky Peach, which lasted for 25 quarterly volumes into 2017. Chang is known for hosting television series about cooking and food, such as Ugly Delicious (2018), Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner (2019), The Next Thing You Eat (2021), and Dinner Time Live with David Chang (2024–present).
Chang was born in Arlington, Virginia to Woo Chung Hi "Sherri", born in Kaesong, and Chang Jin Pil, later Joseph P. Chang, born in Pyongyang. Chang's parents emigrated from Korea as adults in the 1960s. Chang grew up in Vienna, Virginia, with two older brothers and one sister. As a child, Chang was a competitive golfer who participated in a number of junior tournaments. Chang attended Georgetown Preparatory School and then Trinity College, where he majored in religious studies. After graduating from college in 1999, Chang pursued a variety of jobs, including teaching English in Japan, bussing tables, and holding finance positions in New York City.
Chang started attending the French Culinary Institute (FCI)—now known as the International Culinary Center—in New York City in 2000. While he was training, he also worked part-time at Mercer Kitchen in Manhattan and got a job answering phones at Tom Colicchio's Craft restaurant. Chang stayed at Craft for two years and then moved to Japan to work at a small soba shop, followed by a restaurant in Tokyo's Park Hyatt Hotel. Upon returning to the U.S., Chang worked at Café Boulud, where his idol, Alex Lee, had worked. But Chang soon grew "completely dissatisfied with the whole fine dining scene". In 2004, Chang opened his first restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar in the East Village. Chang's website states momofuku means "lucky peach", but the restaurant also shares a name with Momofuku Ando—the inventor of instant noodles. Later that year, Chang expanded Momofuku Ssäm Bar into an adjacent space with his colleague Christina Tosi, whom he had hired to run Momofuku's pastry program. They named the new space Momofuku Milk Bar, serving soft serve, along with cookies, pies, cakes and other treats, many of these inspired by foods Tosi had as a child. In May 2009, it was reported that Momofuku Milk Bar's Crack Pie, Cereal Milk, and Compost Cookies were in the process of being trademarked. In October 2009, Chang and former New York Times food writer Peter Meehan published Momofuku, a cookbook containing recipes from Chang's restaurants. Chang launched Fuku, a chain of fast food restaurants specializing in fried chicken sandwiches, in June 2015. In 2016, Chang launched his first digital-only restaurant, which offers a menu only for delivery in Midtown East and takes orders taken via an app named Ando. Later in 2016, Chang participated in a project hosted by a Silicon Valley startup named Impossible Foods. He prepared food that was later added on the menu of one of his restaurants, Momofuku Nishi, as a partnership between Impossible Foods and David Chang. In May 2017, Chang announced the opening of a new restaurant at the Hudson Yards development in New York. In July 2017, Chang announced the opening of his first West Coast restaurant in Los Angeles. The restaurant, Majordomo, opened in January 2018.
Chang's current restaurants include Bāng Bar in New York and Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, as well as several Fuku restaurants in various stadiums and arenas around the country, for example at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. There is a Bar Kabawa in East Village New York City, a Majordōmo in Los Angeles, and Momofuku Noodle Bars in East Village, Manhattan, Uptown New York City, and Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Chang also has Peach Palace at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Super Peach at Century City in Los Angeles.
In November 2010, Chang announced the opening of his first restaurant outside the US in Sydney, Australia. Momofuku Seiōbo opened in October 2011 at the redeveloped Star City Casino in Pyrmont, New South Wales. The restaurant was awarded three hats from the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide in its first year and was named Best New Restaurant. In 2021, it closed.
In late 2012, Chang opened a location of Momofuku in downtown Toronto. The restaurant was located in a three-story glass cube. Momofuku Toronto was made up of three restaurants, Noodle Bar, Daishō and Shōtō, as well as a bar, Nikai. Daishō and Shōtō closed in late 2017, and the space was refurbished. A new Momofuku restaurant, Kojin, opened in the space in 2018. Momofuku Toronto and Kojin closed in 2022.
