When chef Chang-ho Shin was running his two Michelin-starred Joo Ok in Korea, he worked closely with farms, visiting regularly and harvesting ingredients for his daily menus. But when he relocated his restaurant to New York City in 2022, he found that many Korean ingredients were unavailable. Perilla seeds and leaves and a critical group of Korean vegetables used for namul, the cuisine’s seasoned vegetable banchan, were not easy to find. When they were, the quality was inconsistent.
Over time, he developed relationships with farmers in the Hudson Valley. Things improved somewhat, but still, Shin longed to have more control over his produce and a closer relationship to the ingredients. “I wanted to start a farm here. But that was not something I could do alone.” Turns out, he didn’t have to.
Shin already knew some of the most acclaimed chefs in Korean cooking: Hoyoung Kim of Michelin-starred Jua, Ok Dongsik of Okdongsik, and JP and Ellia Park, the husband-and-wife team behind Hand Hospitality’s Atoboy, Naro, Seoul Salon, and two Michelin-starred Atomix.
His friends were also having trouble sourcing traditional Korean produce. “I could usually buy good meat or fish, but vegetables were different,” said Jua’s Kim. “Even if I paid more, I still could not always get the quality I wanted. That made me think more seriously about local ingredients, and in the end, it led me to the idea that we should try growing them ourselves.”
To that end Shin and his colleagues launched First Hand Farm, a one-acre farm in New York’s Hudson Valley devoted to growing foundational Korean crops: perilla leaves and namul like island spinach, naengi, butterbur, gomchwi, daylily shoots, jeonho, bujigaengi, and wild garlic.
The farm is the embodiment of a collective dream. “This has been on my mind for several years,” said Atomix’s JP Park. “What made it possible to move from an idea to something real was not just individual effort, but the presence of a community. There are many Korean chefs of my generation who are asking similar questions—about identity, ingredients, and the future of our cuisine. It evolved from something conceptual into something that felt necessary, and ultimately achievable.”
While the plot is just an acre, it is a mighty one. Aside from crops and a shared flower garden, the farm will also serve a broader goal of creating a space for fermentation and preservation essential to Korean cooking and culture. “I want the farm to become a place where we can engage with natural processes—where ingredients are not only harvested, but also transformed and preserved over time,” said chef Park. “That continuity between growing, fermenting, and cooking is something I find very meaningful.”
On a warm sunny spring day in mid-April, the chefs travelled to the farm to make their jang, the fermented paste at the heart of Korean cooking. “More than a seasoning, it is a practice shaped by time, environment, and human care,” Ellia Park explained. “At its core, jang relies on just a few elements: soybeans, salt, time, and patience.”
The process of making jang is lengthy and begins with fermented soybean blocks known as meju made in late autumn. The blocks are dried and tied with rice straw, and left to ferment naturally. Toward the end of winter the dried meju is washed and submerged in brine inside onggi, large earthenware jars—a step that took place that day in April when the chefs travelled to the farm together to collectively prepare the meju — now deep brown and fermented — for their long soak inside the onggi.
The chefs worked together for several hours, first to sterilize the onggi over heated charcoal topped with a small amount of honey, which fumigate and purify the vessels. They then added the meju and salted water into the urns, stirring in jujube (a sweet fruit similar to a date) which adds natural sugar, antioxidants, and antimicrobials to balance the flavor of the fermentation. Dried chili peppers also help to stabilize the fermentation environment in the early stage.
The final step will come in a few months when the solids and liquids separate. The liquid becomes ganjang (soy sauce); the solids are mashed to become doenjang (soybean paste). “Both soy sauce and soybean paste are aged further, often for years,” said Ellia Park. “Time softens the saltiness, increases depth of flavor and natural umami develops. It is common in Korea to reference jang by its age—three-year, five-year, or even ten-year-old jang—reflecting its value and complexity.”
The farm comes at the right time in the evolution of Korean cuisine and culture. “Over the past 10 years, there has been a significant increase in global interest in Korean food and culture,” said First Hand Farm’s Director Joshua Lee. Growing Korean ingredients on New York soil is impactful as well. “I've come to think deeply about terroir,” said JP Park. “There is something meaningful about ingredients that are grown here, shaped by this environment. That contrast—Korean culinary philosophy expressed through New York-grown ingredients—can create a new kind of identity and experience.”
Paying it forward to the next generation, keeping rituals and traditions alive, is a value embedded in the project. “We want to educate younger cooks, and expose them to the connection between nature, ingredients, and cooking,” said JP Park. “That experience is difficult to replicate in a traditional kitchen environment, and I believe it will become a valuable part of how we train and develop our team.
For the chefs, the farm also represents a broader exploration of the meaning of hospitality.
“First Hand holds two meanings at once: ingredients grown by our own hands, and the very first gesture that makes hospitality possible,” said Ellia Park. “The farm also allows us to build something beyond procurement — a space for education, collaboration, and cultural exchange,” added chef Park. “The farm is not just about growing food. It's about redefining where hospitality starts.”