Don't cross Culinary Class Wars star Anh Sung-jae of three-Michelin-starred Mosu

On an early episode of Netflix's hit reality cooking show Culinary Class Wars (2024), chef Anh Sung-jae stood in a warehouse filled with makeshift cooking stations and considered the plate in front of him: a rainbow palette of handmade pastas, purees and delicately cooked seafood. On top was a smattering of flower petals.

- Daisuke Wakabayashi

A judge on the show, he praised how the contestant had put together an elaborate dish and handled everything perfectly - almost.

"I don't know why you chose to put flowers on top of such a gorgeous pasta," he said to the crestfallen participant.

"I hate putting useless stuff on dishes just to make them look prettier," Anh said later. "What he did was add something that had no flavour and no use." Anh is chef and owner of Mosu, South Korea's only three-Michelinstarred restaurant, where his exacting and uncompromising standards have served him well.

Yet, despite reaching the pinnacle of the culinary world, he was not a household name in the country.

When he was introduced as a judge, a handful of contestants whispered to one another: "Who's that?" That is no longer the case. He has risen to TV fame as a hard-toimpress and ruthlessly unsentimental judge on Culinary Class Wars, which features 100 contestants from all corners of the culinary world.

But the breakout star was Anh, 42, and now, he is everywhere.

He had a prime-time interview on one of the country's most prominent news programmes. He starred in commercials for Subway sandwiches. And in a nod to his growing celebrity, he was lampooned in a sketch on South Korea's version of Saturday Night Live capturing his form-fitting, plum-coloured suit and his tendency to sprinkle English into his Korean sentences.

It has been a remarkable homecoming for Anh, who emigrated to the United States with his family as a teenager almost three decades ago, settling in Southern California. He helped at his parents' Chinese restaurant, but he did not have much interest in the kitchen.

Instead of going to college, he enlisted in the US Army after high school with dreams of travelling the world. After the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, he asked to be sent to Iraq.