Southern barbecue becomes hit in Seoul thanks to Linus Kim

As a child, Linus Kim was a picky eater. He recalls rejecting his parents’ traditional Korean food in favor of the American food his friends ate. But one fateful day, some children rang the doorbell of Kim’s Mountain Brook home.

“Some kids showed up at my doorstep doing some kind of fundraiser. I was really, really young. And they were selling barbecue dinners, like plate dinners, in the Styrofoam packaging. So my mom bought a few of those, not knowing what it was, and it turned out to be pulled pork, you know, swimming in the sauce,” Kim said. “It was the first time my mother had ever seen me lick the plate clean. I wouldn’t eat anything, but I would eat that.”

That was the first step leading Kim to open Linus’ Barbecue, one of the most popular American barbecue restaurants in Seoul, South Korea.

Barbecue would be a staple of Kim’s life as he grew up in Mountain Brook, where he lived from second grade and went to the Altamont School and later John Carroll High School. 

“Pulled pork was king, right? You had pulled pork everywhere, and I just couldn’t get enough of it,” Kim said.

When he moved out of the South, Kim said the absence of pulled pork and sauce was sorely felt. Finally, in 2006, Kim landed in Los Angeles, working in post-production for 20th Century Fox.

There, Kim set up a grill on his rooftop and tried his hand at his favorite food.

“I remember the first batches I made were awful,” he said.

But he got better. Kim kept making barbecue — it was often his go-to dish to bring to parties — as a hobby, slowly getting more serious about it. Finally, he decided he needed a career he could “really sink my teeth into.”

With no restaurant experience, he decided to try his hand in the food industry.

“Funny things happen when you’re back against a wall and you’ve got nothing to lose,” Kim said.

First, Kim traveled to South Korea to help a friend make a series of “food consultant” videos in 2011. They weren’t a success, but it gave him the chance to make pulled pork for an event. He had to get a bit creative to do it.

“But they don’t have smokers in Korea, right? They have mini hibachi grills, and I had a hotel pan, and I had some charcoal. I rigged a smoker. I didn’t even have a thermometer, which is the No. 1 tool anybody, [any] pit-master should have. I just eyeballed it and cooked it until I could stick my finger in it,” Kim said.

Americans at the event loved the familiar food. Kim said the locals were a bit more hesitant, but liked it as well. With no one nearby in Seoul doing barbecue, Kim saw an opportunity.

He started with wholesale barbecue meats, then began pop-ups at local bars. For the first one, Kim said he emailed everyone he knew, which was only a handful of people. The list of interested people grew to 800 in a matter of days. The line at the first pop-up wrapped around the block, and Kim said he had trouble keeping up.

“The pop-ups were a sensation and completely unexpected,” he said.

Despite the pop-ups’ success, Kim wanted to keep improving. He returned to the U.S. in 2013 to make a “barbecue tour” of some of the best-known pit masters in the country. Along the way, he learned how to cook a whole hog, competed in his first barbecue competition and became a certified judge of Memphis-style barbecue.

Kim said he was amazed that everywhere he went — from Decatur to Tulsa, Oklahoma —everyone opened their doors to him and invited him to learn. He said the experience cemented his passion for barbecue, adding it was the first thing he was willing to stay up all night for.

But Kim also had a decision to make when he returned to South Korea. He could continue the successful pop-ups, or attempt to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant. There was a lot more risk and labor involved in a restaurant, but it also would give him the chance to try a lot of new things.

“Honestly, I had been resisting the idea of a restaurant,” Kim said. “But at the same time I was very conflicted because the only way to serve all the food that I wanted is to have a full operation.”

He decided to stop the pop-ups and develop his restaurant in secret. With help from friends, Kim opened Linus’ Barbecue in 2014. With a following already developed from the pop-ups, Kim didn’t have to wait for people to notice him.

“We opened the doors, and it was full from Day 1,” Kim said.

Linus’ Barbecue started with a mostly American crowd, especially soldiers stationed nearby. Since then, Kim said the percentage of local diners has increased significantly.

“I knew if my name was on it, there was no way I’d let the place burn to the ground. I’d put everything into it,” Kim said.

His restaurant sells classic American barbecue along with bourbon, craft beer and cocktails. From the menu to the Old West saloon theme, Kim said Linus’ is meant to be an American experience.

“I’ve had people tell me that they’re very homesick, and they come to the restaurant, and they feel like they’re not in Korea. They’re transported to another place, and that makes me feel good,” Kim said.

Barbecue aficionados, however, might find the look of Kim’s food a little unfamiliar. While he does classic sandwiches and individual meals, Kim said his most popular dish is a platter with multiple types of meat, sides and slider buns. The platters can feed two or three people, matching the South Korean cultural norm of sharing meals. Kim said locals often combine the ingredients on their platters in ways Americans would never think of, but they enjoy it just as much.

In the two years since Linus’ Barbecue opened, Kim said he knows of at least seven other barbecue restaurants that have opened in his area. However, he said his restaurant continues to draw crowds because of the heart put into it, and the willingness to be creative in a country that doesn’t have many of the ingredients and tools a barbecue restaurant needs.

“There’s no such thing as push-button barbecue. It really takes a lot of technique and some knowledge to know when something’s perfectly done,” Kim said.

Kim said he loves the opportunity to bring barbecue to people who miss it, as well as to introduce his favorite food to Koreans who have never had something like it.

Kim returns to the U.S. once a year to participate in barbecue competitions and hone his skills, as well as to visit parents David and Young Kim, who still live in Mountain Brook. Linus Kim said he is looking to expand Linus’ Barbecue in Seoul and beyond South Korea. In the distant future, he said he’s even considered bringing the restaurant to the U.S., perhaps to his hometown.

“It’s a pipe dream, but I’ve made pipe dreams happen before,” Kim said.