This Restaurant Deliciously Celebrates Deli Food Through a Mixed Culture Lens

The Korean Biscuits & Gravy at Yangban Society in Los Angeles was one of my favorite bites of 2022. Jumping off with that point allows me to paint for you the delicious picture that the restaurant is serving as a multi-faceted cultural stew that ultimately pays homage to deli food and culture.

Chefs John and Katianna Hong are behind the popular new restaurant, where they cook up a vision that includes a patchwork background of Korean American identity and Jewish and Irish Catholic influences, sewn with the common thread of deli food and culture. The result is more than just an homage, its a cultural shift even, a mirror more so, reflecting the multi-cultural dining many new American chefs have been displaying as a result of their unique upbringing and influences.

How that all plays out is a menu that boasts nuanced and thoughtful fusion — matzoh ball soup accompanied by Korean sujebi dumplings, bone-in heritage pork katsu crowned with ssamjang cabbage slaw, for example — that’s presented with fine dining finesse sans the stuffiness and pomp, which proves to be a proper eyewink to deli food.

Yangban Society is already a popular choice in the melting pot that is Los Angeles, as diners have caught on and acknowledged its concept, which is as layered as their fluffy biscuits devilishly drenched in Korean gravy.