Minwoo sneaked inside the interview room and took a seat in the corner. Then he quietly listened to others talking to each other. He wanted to get into their conversation, but like a typical Asian, he was hesitant in a situation like this. Speaking to Jill on the elevator was the most he could get up the nerve to do.

  Of course, their main topic was about Min-joon and Kaya, such as how great they were, or what a great opportunity it was for them to be able to work with them. Minwoo felt as if he was so immature among these mature people who were so logical and systematic in their conversation, compared to him who just applied for this job thoughtlessly.

  “How do genius chefs feel”


  “I have no idea. When I look at them on the TV show, they just look ordinary like us, but when it comes to cooking, they are incredibly preoccupied with it, so ordinary people like us can’t figure it out at all.”


  “Oh, then it means we’re meeting America’s most famous chefs right now, right?”


  “We are not just meeting them. We’re going to work with them!”


  “I really hope so.”


  “You can. So don’t worry.”


  Hearing their conversation, Jill nodded slightly.

  Kaya and Min-joon. Actually, she watched each and every episode of their TV shows. They were great chefs. They were special chefs. One of the reasons she was here was because she wanted to find and imitate something special about them.

  ‘Can I do it?’


  What could she hide at this point? Kaya and Min-joon were almost her idols. More precisely, there were few young chefs who didn’t like them because they could not find any flaws in the way they cooked or they dealt with people.

  So she was thrilled. Her heart was pounding heavily as she was to see them at any moment. She was about to see these legendary chefs with her own eyes.

  Finally, the door of the interview room opened.

  Kaya and Min-joon walked out of the door. Jill, who was about to smile at them unwittingly, couldn’t help but make an awkward expression on her face.

  ‘Oh, she is right.’


  Her eyes turned to Kaya. Dressed in a neatly ironed cook suit, she was wearing the same intense makeup as when she first appeared in the Grand Chef competition. With her deep eye and lip make-up, she looked pretty individualistic at best, but at the same time, she looked like a hippie-style woman as if a child did rough make-up by imitating her mother. But her pretense to look proud and mature with her strong make-up seemed to give these job seekers an overwhelming impression on purpose.

  Only then did she remember that the two chefs were geniuses. They were different from other chefs, but at the same time, they lacked something a bit.

  Come to think of it, however, there was nothing new about their words and deeds, especially Kaya’s. For example, Kaya had been notorious for putting on makeup like that for a long time. So much so that many people wondered if she was a hippie.

  But lately, she didn’t put on a lot of make-up as she used to during the Grand Chef days. As a matter of fact, she didn’t know how to do make-up back then rather than her doing heavy make-up on purpose.

  Of course, that was not necessarily bad for her. Thanks to her heavy make-up at that time, she could create her image as it was now, namely, that of a free, wild soul, and not swayed by the universal decorum of society.

  ‘It’s about time she mastered how to do make-up.’


  Jill looked a little puzzled. Just like before, Kaya was not good at doing make-up. Given her status as a top chef, Kaya didn’t have to do such ugly make-up just because she wanted to look great in front of the applicants in the interview room.

  Of course, only Min-joon knew that reason.

  ‘I told you not to do make-up like that, Kaya,’ Min-joon thought to himself.

  He sighed deep down. In fact, Kaya and he pondered a lot about one question—what kind of cooking mission and what criteria to apply to select the successful applicants. At the same time, they even pondered about how best they could look to the applicants, which might sound trifling to many people.

  Even though the two chefs would not work with a majority of the applicants this time, those who would be selected this time would remember their first impressions of the two chefs during the interview. So, Min-joon and Kaya agonized over what kind of impression they should leave on their minds, which actually gave them a real headache for some time.

  “I want to be a head chef who can be respected by our kitchen staff.”


  “Just like Chef Rachel?”


  “Nope, I don’t like it.”


  “Of course, I respect Chef Rachel, but she looks detached from us, so I just don’t feel close to her. Of course, you may feel toward her differently because you have worked with her. But that’s my impression of her. Over time, I can find out more about her true personality, and my first impression of her won’t be important, but I really don’t want to have my kitchen staff look up at me like Chef Rachel.”


  “So how do you want them to respect you, Kaya?”


  “Well, hopefully, they can respect me as a friend…… Well, that’s right. I want them to respect me as a friend. Rather than thinking that they should follow us because we are great, I want to cook with them who want to be like us. .”


  Min-joon fully understood her feelings because he had felt the same thing several times. For example, Anderson was the case in point. t. At some point, he clearly gave up competing with Min-joon, but it didn’t last long. More precisely, he didn’t give up, but he just got skeptical about his competition with Min-joon.

  No wonder he felt so. Even though he and Min-joon cooked the same dishes in the same restaurant, namely, Rose Island, under the same teacher Rachel, Min-joon was getting far ahead of him by making such an original popular dessert Cho Reggiano while he didn’t come up with anything worth mentioning.

  So Anderson felt as if he was starving everyday. But actually, Anderson wasn’t the only one who was distressed because of Min-joon at that time. Min-joon felt heartbroken to see Anderson distressed because of him. The word “best” before any person shone brighter when there was a competitor right next to him or her, for it was easy for the “best” guy not to know exactly whether he or she was running ahead of his or her competitor when running on an empty road without any sense of danger.

  ‘I don’t want to live in such an ambiguous world.’


  So Min-joon was on the same page with Kaya. Like her, he also wanted to stick to his guns and not forget where he started during the Grand Chef Season 3. But he felt a bit embarrassed to see Kaya’s heavy make-up right now. When he first met her during the Grand Chef competition, he felt her rather cute rather than ugly. At that time, he vaguely thought her heavy make-up could pass in American society. But that was not necessarily true. Given her status in the cooking world, her heavy make-up was far from acceptable.

  Besides, he felt her English accent was also awkward. He thought she reduced her British accent quite a lot, but she already forgot it and showed off her original British accent as much as she could. Even though she was raised in America, she could not help but avoid her British accent because her mother was British.

  “You can be proud that you are here for the interview today because not all of them who have applied are here. Over 600 people submitted their applications, but there are fewer than 100 here. So you’ve done well enough since you are here,” Kaya said.

  Hearing that, Min-joon felt his ears burning. Actually, what she said was exactly the standard announcement that they made to those applicants who made the cut at the Grand Chef competition. Since that was all she learned and memorized at the time, she had no choice but to repeat it, but he was very embarrassed to notice those applicants with experiences in attending the Grand Chef giggling secretly.

  She continued, “Alright, let me tell you again about how many we’re going to select today. We’re going to select one sous chef, but 13 people have applied for that position. We’re going to choose four demi chefs, but 25 people have applied. Besides, we’re going to select four cooks, but 32 people have applied. Lastly, we’re going to hire one junior chef, and 27 applicants want this job.”


  Ironically, it seemed that their competition for the junior chef position would be the most fierce because only one of the 27 applicants would be chosen for it. Basically, the competition for this position was absurdly high, compared with other positions.