In 1995, the year he turned 23, he joined the Yongsan Italian restaurant La Cucina through his older brother’s introduction and began cooking. He never attended culinary school or trained abroad. In 2004, he became La Cucina’s main chef. He says ten years at one place was worth more than any degree.
In 2010, he became head chef at the Italian restaurant Elbon the Table in Garosu-gil. He created more than 1,000 original dishes and was called a crazy chef. In 2012, he appeared on a cooking show, Food TV’s Chef Choi Hyun-seok’s Crazy Time Season 2.
The breakthrough yearIn November 2014, the year he turned 42, he appeared as a chef from the first episode of JTBC’s Please Take Care of My Refrigerator. The show had chefs cook in 15 minutes using only ingredients from a guest’s refrigerator, and TV Report wrote that Choi became a star chef through it.
In 2015, he judged Olive TV’s Korean Food Battle 3 and appeared at the Olive Show 2015 open studio. In 2016, he appeared in a mask on MBC’s King of Mask Singer. In 2017, he opened his own restaurant, Choi Dot, and left Please Take Care of My Refrigerator.
In 2018, he started the web show Extreme Chef – Choigaiber on SBS Mobidic. In 2019, he appeared on KBS2’s Boss in the Mirror and, in a December episode, told staff that the company had been acquired and he was leaving the restaurant.
In January 2020, he issued a statement on a phone-hacking incident and contract forgery allegations, and opened Central Reducer in Seongsu-dong. He then stepped away from TV to focus on running the restaurant. In 2021, he launched a steak meal kit with Emart24. In 2022, he gave a cooking show at the K-Brand Expo in New York. In 2023, he launched a hamburger steak meal with Freshee.
In 2024, he appeared as a White Spoon on Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars, and in December he joined the new season of Please Take Care of My Refrigerator, back after five years. In 2025, he appeared on SBS’s Jungle Bap 2 and received the CF Star Award at the 2025 MTN Broadcast Advertising Festival. In 2026, the year he turned 54, he became a grandfather, and he said in an interview that his next stage is New York.
Choi Hyun-seok (born Jul 6, 1972) started cooking in 1995, the year he turned 23, at the Italian restaurant La Cucina, and became known on Nov 17, 2014, the year he turned 42, when he appeared on the first episode of JTBC’s Please Take Care of My Refrigerator. He appeared on Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars in 2024, the year he turned 52.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.