Twenty years ago Edward Lee was a carefree literature student at the University of Michigan. But when his parents bought a struggling Manhattan diner, Lee was summoned home to pitch in, and he wasn’t happy about it.


He learned quickly how to cook and discovered he was skilled at multitasking and at managing people. When the 
diner became profitable, Lee’s parents sold it — which was fine by him. He left the job vowing never to work in a restaurant again.


When a string of “regular jobs” turned out badly, he accepted a friend’s invitation to cook at a high-end French-Moroccan restaurant in Manhattan. The chef there taught him that cooking was about passion, not mere 
mechanics. Inspired, Lee struck out on his own two years later with a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan named Clay. His success there led him on a chance trip to Louisville, Ky., where he bought a boutique restaurant, 610 Magnolia, in 2004. 



Title: co-owner, 610 Magnolia

Residence: Louisville, Ky.

Business partner: Brook Smith

Birth date: July 2, 1972

Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.

Education: New York University, B.S. in literature

Career highlight: defeating Jose Garces on Food Network’s Iron Chef America


Were you really ready to own your own restaurant when you opened Clay at just 25 years old?


Looking back, I’d never want to do it that way again. I didn’t know how awful it was going to be. We found a Chinese restaurant in a bad neighborhood, and the owner wanted to sell it really cheap. I knew this neighborhood — now they call it Nolita — was going to be big, so I jumped in.


When you’re that young you don’t realize how scary it is. And truthfully I didn’t have time to be scared because it was so busy. We opened up and we were packed, so I just kept running, working seven days a week without a day off for the first two years it was open.



How did it get so busy so fast?


A New York Times write-up helped. Since Clay was a cheaper restaurant, it didn’t get a full review, just a mention. But the day that article published, we got hit. Lunch was never busy there, so I was coming in at about 11, as usual. And as I’m drinking coffee and walking toward the restaurant, I see this line. And I realized it was a line out the restaurant. We had one waiter on staff that day; we got crushed. From that day on I never underestimated the power of the media.


Where did you first discover that food was more than just a meal?


My parents emigrated from Korea, and my grandmother came with them. She was a fabulous cook. My parents encouraged me to do sports, but I wanted to just come home from school and hang out with Grandma and make food.


Every year for my birthday, I always wanted to go to a fancy restaurant for my present. Even as a kid I’d taste the food and wonder what those mindboggling flavors were. 


Later, as a chef, I started eating at places in New York like Le Bernardin and Daniel, and I could taste and 
understand what I couldn’t as a kid. And it made me think, “I want to raise the level of my food. I want to do something more.”


So how did that lead you to Louisville and 610 Magnolia?


To do what I wanted in New York would have taken at least $5 million and multiple investors. So I started thinking about how to do that outside New York. And in the same way I found that first cook’s job, a friend told me about a restaurant in Louisville. I was taking some time off and figured I’d go there during the Kentucky Derby, so I called but couldn’t get a reservation. And when I talked to the chef, he invited me to hang out in the kitchen, if I wanted. So I went and worked it, and we became very good friends.


After I’d gone back to New York, he called and said, “I want you to take over my restaurant.” He was retiring. Initially I said no, but he’d keep calling and say, “Are you ready yet?” Eventually, I sold Clay and came here thinking, “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go back.” And that was seven years ago.


What you serve here now resembles little of what the previous chef did.


Still, I’d argue that it’s the same restaurant, just for the next generation. [Chef-owner] Eddie Garber’s mission at 610 was always rooted in his desire to push the envelope and bring the city to a higher sensibility about food, and we’re doing that, too.


When we stopped doing Caesar salad here, people were saying, “You’ll never make it here.” But after a couple of weeks, no one noticed. … This past summer we took beef off the menu because I wanted something lighter, beef costs were high, and we couldn’t get the quality we wanted. And again, people were telling me, “You’ll close your doors in six months!” But we did it, and no one cared because there are so many other choices. You just have to lead [customers] to them.


Were you surprised you beat Jose Garces in your first try on Iron Chef?


Well, I wasn’t going there to lose. 


Is it as tough as it looks on TV?


Definitely. You’re completely out of your element. I mean, who cooks with a smoke machine and 10 cameras in your face, and under a stopwatch? It’s completely the opposite of what you do in the kitchen, where everything is calculated and meticulously prepared. But it was pretty cool.