Jun Lee has always had an experimental streak through his career. After studying under America’s most decorated chef Thomas Keller at NYC’s iconic Per Se, as well as Michelin chef Jonathan Benno at Lincoln Ristorante, Jun arrived in Korea to launch the country’s first pop-up restaurant, taking the industry by a storm and kicking off a national trend.
He went on to launch several more successful pop-ups in Seoul before opening Soigné, a restaurant he conceptualized as a “lab for chefs” which elegantly fuses modern French, Italian, and American techniques and flavors into Korean cuisine. Jun earned his first Michelin star for Soigné before launching a sister restaurant called Doughroom, which focuses on artisanal pasta made from scratch each day.
Jun had a lot of interest in delivery platforms for Doughroom long before the launch of Coupang Eats, seeing the potential of leveraging technology to elevate the dining experience. “I’ve long thought about ways to make it so that people could experience gourmet dining culture they could only have at restaurants in the comfort of their own homes,” said Jun. However, he ran into two major obstacles. First, the quality of delivery services was an issue, as deliveries could take over an hour on peak times but such delays were also unpredictable. This meant that restaurants could not properly ensure that their foods would arrive to their customers as they intended. This led to the second obstacle—many customers and restaurants alike simply believed gourmet and delivery did not belong together.
The launch of Coupang Eats, and the COVID-19 pandemic a few months thereafter, were a turning point for Jun. As food delivery quickly became the norm, he became convinced that it would become a permanent part of dining culture as well, and he signed up for the service in April 2020.
As a master of his craft, Jun was not content with simply treating meals prepared for delivery the same as meals served in the restaurant. The noodles that he painstakingly made from scratch each day to draw out the most flavor and best textures could easily turn soft and soggy during the delivery time, so he needed an alternate solution. Jun solved this by developing separate recipes for delivery, undercooking the noodles slightly so that they would finish cooking by the time they arrived at the customers’ doorsteps. He also experimented with different containers, taking into account their ability to retain flavor and heat. “We went through a lot of experiments to check the changes in food temperature and texture due to differences in packaging methods,” he said.
For Jun’s delivery experiment, Coupang Eats was essential. Because drivers on Coupang Eats deliver straight from store to door, without picking up other orders in between, delivery times were far faster than average. The service also provided greater transparency for restaurants and customers through technology, enabling Jun to make more informed decisions. “The advantage of Coupang Eats is that it accurately informs you of everything from delivery orders to cooking status, pickup and delivery completion in real time,” said Jun. “This allows us to finish cooking at the most optimal time, and also allows customers to enjoy the best pasta even with delivery. Even now, around 90% of all Doughroom delivery orders come through Coupang Eats.”
With the help of Coupang Eats, Jun was able to realize a long-standing dream of his as a chef. “We wanted to allow more people to try the wonderful experience of gourmet food,” said Jun. “Thanks to Coupang Eats, I was able to turn this food philosophy into reality. I think of Coupang Eats as the platform that was the first step toward a new leap forward in my career.”
Even now, Jun is continuously experimenting and growing as a chef, embracing technology to deliver new experiences. “In order to upscale delivery quality, chefs need to better understand the characteristics and advantages of technology and delivery platforms, so that they can improve the dining experience,” said Jun. “If we reject technological progress and rely only on tradition, we could all fail. I aim to be a chef who can quickly accept technological advances and changes in the world and use them to provide an even better experience to customers.”
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