Who would’ve guessed a kid who grew up in La Pine, and whose favorite childhood food was chicken McNuggets, would rise to the top of the national culinary scene?

Joe Kim says he couldn’t have dreamed the life he is leading now, as co-owner and executive chef of 5 Fusion & Sushi Bar in downtown Bend. Kim recently received a nomination from the James Beard Foundation as one of the top chefs in America.

“I couldn’t believe I got the nomination. They’re first announced in New York, on the East Coast, so we looked online early in the morning here, and I had to do a triple check and hit the refresh button a couple of times,” said Kim.

Though he recently learned he did not receive the grand prize, the nomination alone has been a great honor for the 32-year-old, who acknowledged he’s on the younger side for chefs being given this recognition.

Getting a James Beard Foundation nomination is like receiving an Academy Award nomination in the culinary world.

Kim is the only chef in Central Oregon to be nominated since the awards began in 1991.

We caught up with Kim on a Sunday morning at his duplex on the west side of Bend. The meeting was no easy feat, when you consider his grueling schedule. Since he began his run as a chef at 5 Fusion in 2011, Kim has had few precious days off. He works at the restaurant Monday through Friday from about 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., and weekends it’s 9 a.m. to often 1 or 2 a.m. If that weren’t enough, he travels all over the country as a guest chef.

It was not surprising to see his big black suitcase was leaning against his kitchen refrigerator, at the ready. He would be using that suitcase to pack a few of his pots and pans, some chef clogs and clothes to cook at the Alinea restaurant in Chicago, a James Beard Foundation award-winning restaurant that also has received a three-star Michelin rating, the highest the guide awards.

On this somewhat unusually relaxed Sunday morning, Kim and two of his sous chefs were gathered in his “under-utilized home kitchen.”

“I can honestly say, I’ve never made a complete meal in here, or even turned on that stove,” said Kim with a good-natured laugh, pointing to the brand-new-looking electric range. “I brought two of my knives from the restaurant home because I didn’t have any knives here.”

Though he would be rushing off to 5 Fusion after our interview, he took time to make eggs Benedict for breakfast with one of his favorite kitchen appliances, the kitchen immersion circulator.

“It will heat the water to the exact temperature you need, and you get perfectly poached eggs for your eggs Benedict,” said Kim, fishing out the egg in the water tank and then expertly cracking the poached egg over a toasted bagel. “The hollandaise sauce is also in the immersion circulator, in what most people think of as a whip cream dispenser, but you can heat the hollandaise sauce in this canister, too.”

To complete his breakfast, he used a round clear glass juice infuser. Looking through the glass flask, one can see the freshly sliced strawberries, oranges and beautiful purple orchids. It looks like art.

And breakfast would not be complete without coffee, and leave it to Kim to have an exotic coffeemaker.

“It’s called a hot siphon. It was designed in Japan. You can only get this in Japan,” said Kim, as he lit the small butane burner underneath what looked like a chemistry beaker. “It percolates up inside the siphon, which gives the coffee a different and unique flavor. Being a chef, I get to have a lot of fun toys.”

This was a rare breakfast meal for Kim, who says he normally uses his blender to whip up a breakfast health drink, and then it’s off to work.

The boyish, athletic looking Kim, with a short mop of black hair, looks even younger than his 32 years. He confessed he rarely has time to sit down and eat his delicious creations.

Kim loves the culinary world because it’s honest.

“I have a business degree from OSU, and I did work in the stock brokerage and mortgage industries for a while, and there’s a lot of B.S. that goes on,” said Kim with a sigh. “But with cooking — it’s honest. It’s either done right or it’s not; there’s no getting around whether it’s good or not.”

Kim says he worked his way through probably 20 different restaurants, learning something from each chef along the way.

“The first restaurant was my dad’s in San Francisco. My parents were divorced, so I went back and forth a lot,” said Kim. “I learned a lot from his Japanese chefs.”

Kim’s Korean father grew up in Osaka, Japan, before coming to America and eventually meeting Kim’s Irish mother. Kim says that although he’s forgotten some of his Japanese, he’s still able to speak a passable version of the language when Japanese customers come to his restaurant.

Because Kim had firsthand knowledge of the long hours involved in working in a restaurant, he says he was quite certain he didn’t want to have anything to do with being in the competitive and challenging restaurant business.

However, years later he had an epiphany.

“Yes, the hours are long for a chef, but if you have a passion for what you’re doing, and you love what you do, it’s not work,” said Kim.

In his under-utilized home kitchen, Kim has his sushi rolling mat on the kitchen counter, because, “you always have to have one of those.”

On the same counter as his immersion circulator, Kim keeps his 15-inch golden Japanese neko (cat) statue with its swinging arm.

“Yes, got to have the neko kitty for good luck.”

Next to the neko statue are two Styrofoam containers of instant Japanese cup of noodles.

“I brought those back from my trip in Japan, because you can’t get these curry flavors in the U.S.,” said Kim.

It may seem counterintuitive that a chef who has just captured a nomination for a James Beard Foundation award has instant cup of noodles on his kitchen counter, but Kim has no pretenses about what he likes.

“People would be surprised, but we get so busy in the restaurant, we have frozen burritos in the freezer and we pop them in the fryer, so we can quickly eat something,” said Kim, laughing.

But despite his guilty food pleasures, Kim knows his way around the freshest fish, beef, chicken and even foie gras and caviar, too.

He says he enjoys all foods, from all countries, but his favorites remain Japanese, Italian and French cuisine. Reflecting that, 5 Fusion & Sushi Bar, which he co-owns with Lillian and Mike Chu, has a decidedly intercontinental flair.

“Lilian likes to say there’s something for everyone at our restaurant,” said Kim. “We can cook up a steak for you, and just a normal dinner, or we can cook up multiple, original, custom courses for you. It’s all what you want to eat.”

Kim laughed that his Irish-born mother has been to the restaurant once, and he had to look for things in the kitchen that she might like.

“She’s not a real adventurous eater, so we were really scrounging in the kitchen,” said Kim, smiling. “But that’s just it, we will cook something everyone can eat; it’s not just for those who want an extravagant dinner.”

Humble and soft spoken by nature, Kim confessed that when it’s busy in the kitchen at work, he can lace his language with some well-chosen words. His two sous chefs, Jake Starr and Remington Oatman, concur.

“The thing is, he’s the best boss I’ve ever had, and I’ve learned so much from him,” said Starr, who originally came to 5 Fusion as a trained pastry chef. “He gives us the freedom to do what we want and to experiment.”

Kim likes to share the glory and has taken his entire kitchen staff to the award-winning Napa Valley restaurant The French Laundry, founded by legendary chef Thomas Keller, where Keller himself cooked for the 5 Fusion staff.

As he headed off to Chicago to be a guest chef at Alinea, Kim mentioned the restaurant no longer takes reservations, but instead sells tickets to its multi-course dinners for about $425, which includes the wine.

Kim seemed pleasantly surprised, and at times incredulous, that he’s been invited to be a guest chef at these famous restaurants with their famous chefs, whom he grew up admiring.

As for his own bent on creativity, Kim often finds inspiration from works of art.

“We found, by accident, that if you take liquid nitrogen and freeze raspberries, when you throw it on the plate, it breaks up the little segments like glass, so it ends up looking like a Jackson Pollock painting,” said Kim.

A large framed Kandinsky print of colorful round spirals hangs prominently in Kim’s home kitchen. He found inspiration in this painting for a beef Wellington dish he served in a puff pastry.

With his sous chefs, Kim says he is always searching for creative ideas, to bring food and the food experience to the next level. He advises home cooks, in their own home kitchens, to find their own creativity in cooking through experimentation.

Kim carefully arranged the organic and locally sourced Shiso leaves on top of his eggs Benedict. The breakfast looked not only delicious, but also artistic.

He seemed pleased that this was noticed.

“You know, the one tool I use a lot are tweezers to place things just right on the food. That’s one thing I learned at Alinea’s is the attention to detail,” said Kim as he fussed with getting the burgundy colored shiso leaves to sit just perfectly atop the poached egg. “It’s about the whole experience when you’re dining.”

Since getting the James Beard Foundation nomination, several doors seem to be opening for this young chef.

He was recently asked to join The Food Network’s Food & Wine Festival in New York City in October, where he’ll be cooking in the same venue as Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto, of “Iron Chef” fame, among other Food Network stars.

What are the three ingredients you will always find in your home kitchen cupboard, and/or refrigerator?

Coffee, salt, dried fruit.

Favorite home meals you like to prepare?

I’ve never prepared a meal at my current home and tend to not like cooking at home because I’ve gotten so used to a restaurant setting. It’s difficult to not have all the restaurant equipment.

What is your favorite home appliance in your kitchen?

Immersion circulator.

What is your favorite hand tool/cooking utensil in your kitchen, other than a knife?

Spoon sticks.

Is there an appliance you disdain having in the kitchen?

Microwave.

Any cool gadgets at work, that you don’t have at home?

The best part about a commercial kitchen is that it is always stocked with whatever you could want and you have a team of people to help clean up!

What chefs do you admire most?

Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz, Daniel Humm, Feran Adria.

What restaurants do you enjoy, other than your own?

Ariana and Summit Saloon.

Does your family have regular dinner or meals together?

Staff meal at the restaurant about 4 nights a week. At the end of the night, everyone stands in the back of the kitchen and eats before we start cleaning up.

Best meal you’ve ever eaten in your life?

The French Laundry with my staff — we ate salmon tartare and oysters with caviar.

Guilty food pleasure?

Tachos (nachos with tater tots instead of chips).

What is your ideal/dream home kitchen?

All stainless steel, modern, basically a commercial kitchen at home.

If you could invite three guests to dinner, who would they be? (Can be dead or alive.)

Steve McQueen, Vincent van Gogh, Bruce Lee.

What do you like to do outside of the kitchen. In other words, what happens when the chef’s toque comes off?

I just took up rock climbing, despite the fact I’m afraid of heights. Other than that I like to travel and eat.

If you were not in the food industry, what profession would you have chosen?

Accountant.

Favorite food quote or philosophy, you often repeat to yourself?

Sense of urgency.

Make it nice!

You’ll have time to rest when you’re dead.

— Reporter: pnakamura@bendbulletin.com

“Yes, the hours are long for a chef, but if you have a passion for what you’re doing, and you love what you do, it’s not work.” — Joe Kim

Editor’s note: “In the kitchen with …” features people in the local culinary scene at home in their own kitchens. To suggest someone to profile, contact athome@bendbulletin.com.