MEET: CHEF DORIS CHOI, SILVIA + GOOD NIGHT
Chef-restaurateur Doris Choi discusses Silvia + Good Night, the role of time in coaxing flavors, shifting from a plant-based mindset + her 2024 James Beard nod.
Interview : Susie Davidson Powell
Photos: Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing
Location: Silvia + Good Night, Woodstock, N.Y.
Tastemaker: Chef Doris Choi
Business: Silvia + Good Night, Woodstock
Website: silviawoodstockny.com | Website: goodnightwoodstock.com
IG: @silviawoodstockny IG: @goodnightwoodstock
Hometown: Seoul, Korea
Current city: Woodstock, NY
Personal style: Dickies jumpsuits, overalls at work, raincoats, blazers, jeans, boots outside work.
Listening to: I only listen to music when I’m prepping dinner at home—lasts an hour. Leonard Cohen, Waterboys. Oddly enough, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash—they are raw and gritty, honest. Never listen anywhere else; I’ve never even been to a concert!
Favorite spirit: None
Favorite classic cocktail: I’m basic—don’t care for cocktails. But I don’t mind an oyster shooter with Bloody Mary.
Favorite bar or venue ever: Dive bars in the city with a pool table. But I’m over that now.
Biggest chef influence: Francis Mallman. I don’t like him as much as a person… but should you separate the man from the art?
Industry trend that should end: tipping culture for pick up and take out. I think tipping is connected to service and it is the restaurant/employers duty to pay employees a living wage.
Welcome to The Dishing’s Quick Serve interviews where we talk matters of taste with tastemakers in the hospitality industry and trailblazers at the intersection of food, culture and art. Today we’re talking with restaurateur and Executive Chef Doris Choi of Silvia + Good Night in Woodstock. Great to see you, Doris. I, of course, reviewed Silvia in 2018, and Good Night in 2021, as the critic for the Times Union, so it’s great to reconnect with you here for The Dishing. Let’s get into it!
You were born in Seoul, Korea, and moved to New York City with your family when you were 3-years old. What are some of your earliest food memories of growing up in NYC?
My mom and dad came to New York City with 4 young kids in tow and the family expanded after that. Food memories? My mom cooked every night and mostly Korean food and honestly not sure how my Mom was able to do this as the ingredients for Korean food were not readily available back in the days. But I remember sweet cereals, pizza and donuts were a treat we rarely had. We never dined out.
You’re self-taught as a chef and you’ve told me before that when you owned a bar with your first husband, you’d keep the Food Network on constantly as he’d often be at work until 4 a.m. while you were at home with the baby. You’ve said you honed your culinary skills by watching TV — is that tongue-in-cheek?!
It’s embarrassing, but I could never sleep in the dark, so my TV was always on. And the Food Network was a phenomenon back in the day. It was the 1990s and there were so many rising chefs. I picked up basic skills because the format was always the same: your mise en place was important, basic knife skills. They always chopped garlic and onions in real time.
In your lengthy career, you were an established leader in the vegan- and plant-based movement which led you to private cheffing for health-focused clients in NYC as well as co-authoring The Fresh Energy Cookbook. But, you say you found your own rules a little too restrictive. When did you become interested in raw, plant-based diets and how would you describe the evolution of your position on proteins and dietary rules?
My path was a selfish one! I just wanted more energy and to be healthier. It worked for several years until I realized I was going down a rabbit hole with the raw food movement. It wasn’t just about eating raw or vegan. There were food combining principles, juicing cleanses, eating light to heavy, following up with lymphatic brushing, infra red saunas, colon hydrotherapy. You couldn’t do enough. It was also elitist… like the expression, “How do you know if someone is vegan?” “They’ll tell you!”
But the biggest benefit for me was actually with the limitations; it made me more creative. Vegetables have so many nuances; it’s not just a leafy green or a root or about its texture. Celery is salty, bell peppers are sweet, parsnips are cloying. I also learned patience with food. It takes time to bring out the essence of ingredients at your limited disposal. You have to ferment, dehydrate, sprout, pickle, smoke, braise.
It was the beginning of the real slow food movement for me. It coincided with moving Upstate and having access to land, fire pits, al fresco dining. I loved cooking slow outdoors and I felt freer to explore and shed the rigid rules that my “elite sisterhood” in the city had on me.
Let’s talk about your path to opening the restaurants in Woodstock. Your sister Betty, had first purchased a house in Woodstock which meant you visited often enough to think of opening your own restaurant in town. The four of you–that’s Betty with her husband Craig Leonard, and you with your husband Niall Grant—are the 4 co-owners of Silvia, which opened in 2017, and Good Night, which opened in 2021 with more of an Asian-inspired identity. They’re so different in concept and interior design. When you were imagining Silvia, what was your starting point for the physical space, the menu, the open kitchen and open-fire cooking?
Silvia was deliberately separated into a bar area and dining area. We didn’t expect to see much action during the off season at Woodstock. We assumed we could fill the bar only and still keep it cozy and have a warm, inviting, packed feel. I also didn’t believe being a plant-based restaurant would be profitable—it’s a business after all. But I was already expanding my cooking to include proteins, so the only issue I had was being thoughtful about how to cook it. I love Francis Mallman’s open fire-cooking approach and practiced it at home, hanging whole chickens on a tethered pole spiked into the fire pit alongside kabocha squash that was covered in warm ashes and whole beets charred on embers. It was a fun time for me. I wanted to create that at Silvia.
Looking back on almost 10 years of Silvia, it’s clear it has been consistently busy, well received and survived the pandemic too. But in 2021, the four of you decided to open Good Night with a very different vibe, menu, interior aesthetic. What was the inspiration here?
COVID sucked so bad, we were all depressed, there was lack of physical connection and relationships suffered: FaceTime, Zoom calls are so impersonal, so artificial. After the threat of COVID mainly passed, it was like being released from jail so Good Night is a big FU to being forced to quarantine in place. We wanted a big open place to celebrate, friends and family to come, eat, enjoy, cherish and we wanted the glamor and unapologetic splendor of its swooping marble, rich velvet, sprawling banquettes, twinkling chandeliers, and the wedding cake tiered bar display…
In 2024 you were nominated for a James Beard award for Good Night. What was the impact for you in getting your first James beard recognition and how did you feel about being recognized for Good Night over Silvia? Was it like choosing a favorite child?
Awards are fun I suppose, but it was slightly lost on me as I was genuinely surprised to be nominated for Good Night over Silvia. Good Night was only in its second or third year and I hadn’t found my grounding yet—and still haven’t. Good Night was my second baby and I didn’t control it as much as Silvia. I was looser with it, took more risks that sometimes didn’t pan out.
Silvia was always thoughtful, a result of 10 plus years of real reflection, hard work, coming to terms with personal ideologies about food with real life expectations and how to let people in on that connection that we all should have to food, the land, the animals we kill, the gifts we receive from the earth, how to revere it and be grateful for it. I think that should warrant an award, a nomination or even a nod. Good Night is really for fun, like a fairytale painting, while Silvia is connected to the earth, it’s the essence. Good Night is the shallow sister that turns heads because her dress is prettier. I’m fine with that but it makes me question the gesture…
I remember when Silvia first opened, the kitchen walls were filled with jars of preserved lemons and kimchi. They’ve gone now, but actually they’re over at Good Night. Why is that?
Silvia has evolved and the recipes reflect one of the main ingredients which is time. We brine, smoke, braise, stew… Cooking on fire is a slower process and time does stand still. We started pairing it with slow cooked grits, slow cooked broths, stocks, slow confit beets, potatoes, fire roasted Brussels… Good Night, being Asian-inspired, needs the acidity of the pickled vegetables, the sour fermentations, the punch in your face to balance the heat of the spices, the aggression of fish sauce, shrimp paste, tamarind, miso, gochujang… it’s a natural place to be in.
You have strong relationships with local farms and, in particular, a very strong relationship with Flowering Sun Ecology mushroom farm in Ellenville for whom, I believe, you are their largest account. How did you connect and is it surprising at all that you go through such a large quantity of mushrooms every week?
Mushrooms are having their day! I just need to keep up with the demand and I’m grateful we can have that symbiotic relationship with them.
Last year when the hip, rustic Early Terrible Woodstock bar closed to re-locate to Brooklyn, there was quite a lot of press about it reopening as Gemela with one of your other sisters running it. You’ve since rethought the format to integrate it into existing operations as it’s directly across the street from Silvia. Can you describe the vision?
It’s still quite young in the process even though we expect to re-open fairly soon. Gemela had its own identity and we wanted it to thrive on its own and not on the back of Silvia. But we have since rethought that and we are coming to terms with perhaps letting the relationship be more natural, organic and allow it to thrive without any limitations. In summer we always have to turn so many people away from Silvia, so this feels as if it can be more connected, a sort of overflow, but its own place too. In building Gemela, the bar was taken out, but that was a mistake. We’ve put it back!
I know you’re more of a wine drinker more than into cocktails, but you have a strong cocktail program in both restaurants that leans on kitchen ingredients, ferments and herbs. What’s most important to you about the drinks program in both restaurants?
We have a great wine list because we have a great sommelier, and we have a great cocktail program because we have amazing head bartenders. We trust them to connect our vision of the food and the environment with their skill and talent.
Woodstock is a popular destination, plus your James Beard nomination is no doubt an added draw, so you’ve said you’re consistently busy with a mix of locals and celebrities… What changes have you experienced post-pandemic? What do you think is the future direction of the restaurant industry?
I think we had a surge in business post COVID because, at the end of the day, people need to eat, to connect, to be seen. But the affordability of dining out is hitting hard. Food prices are really high, paying people living wages cuts into already lean profits. Dining out is a luxury.
How would you describe your approach to hospitality? And what is most compelling for you about your work as a chef and restaurateur?
You should speak to our GM Charlie because he nails it! The balance of being congenial, kind, welcoming with a really fresh take on being open, honest and firm when needed. I know nothing of good hospitality which is why I stay in the kitchen! [Laughs]
We always talk to our industry tastemakers about their work/life balance and how they relax or protect their health and mental health. Given your background in healthful eating, do you feel as if you successfully prioritize your health? How do you unwind?
Delegate, delegate, delegate, and trust your circle of talent that you hired. Let go, let it be, and stop worrying about the one bad review, just focus on the other 99 that are great.
Where are 3 of your favorite spots in the Hudson Valley to take friends for breakfast, lunch or dinner?
I wind up being too critical at restaurants because I feel like I’m at work and it’s not nice of me so like to stay home and cook. …but I’d say Rosie’s General for salads and sandwiches, Mirador for tapas, and Top Taste for authentic Jamaican jerk chicken—all three in Kingston, N.Y.
What’s your favorite dish on the menu in either restaurant?
Mushroom lentil pate at Silvia. In the beginning I had people begging me to swear it was vegan! They were so afraid I was lying!
And the Shan Tofu at Good Night because it’s really just Panisse with an Asian twist
If someone were coming to Woodstock for a weekend, what would you’d suggest they should do in the area?
Take a hike, go antiquing, go fishing, eat outdoors, find a fire pit, watch the sunset.
Imagine your ideal day or night out. If you could go anywhere at all with no limits on costs or reservations, where would you go and how would the evening unfold?
I hate not having limitations, it’s so boring! Give me three things to choose from and whatever I choose will be fine. It’s like asking my husband, “What do you want for dinner?”—and oh, what a chore that is! [Laughs.] I can pretty much cook whatever he wants, but there is no joy in having whatever you want. So it’s “chicken, beef or fish?” But ideally I’d definitely start with a glass of white wine, some prep music, the NYT crosswords, and a sunset that tells me that the day is coming to a close so I can unwind and be present.
Thanks so much, chef. We appreciate your time and really loved exploring the differences between both of your restaurants. We’re looking forward to seeing your third restaurant project come to life!
