Gloucester has a new champion. Chef Sang Hyun Lee, the South Korean-born sushi chef, won all three rounds of the well-known Food Network cooking competition Chopped to become a Chopped Champion. For the first time in a special episode Chopped featured four experienced sushi chefs to compete in a “Sushi Showdown.”
Airing on May 27, Lee competed in three rounds – one for appetizer, entree, and dessert. For each course, host Ted Lee presented the chefs with a basket of surprise ingredients that needed to be included in their dish. Chopped requires each competitor to create an original creation as the clock counts down (20 minutes for the appetizer round and 30 minutes for the entree and desserts rounds) from the basket items and a stocked pantry. Lee and the other chefs were challenged to use ingredients including yuzu citrus fruit, candy, kanpachi fish (otherwise known as amberjack), and seaweed-flavored potato chips.
Lee is the owner of Sushi Sang Lee, an eight-seat (with two seatings per evening) Edomae-style omakase dining experience in downtown Gloucester. His 18-course omakase menu centers around the seasons and the sea. According to the Sushi Sang Lee website, Lee offers “a reinterpretation of this revered tradition using the day’s freshest catch from the historic fishing port of Gloucester.”
Lee trained and acquired his extensive and precise kitchen skills at famed spots in both Boston and New York City including Oshii Too, Akari, Sen Sakana, and Shuko under Chef Nick Kim. In the summer of 2012, after running a sushi bar at the Madfish Grille in Rocky Neck and meeting his wife Elena Lee, Gloucester became his forever home.
For more details and reservations: sushisanglee.com
Details about the episode